Dimensional Twin
by Gloweye
Summary: After a freak magical occurrence triggered by Voldemort's defeat, twenty year old Harry finds himself transported into another world... right on top of his female counterpart, Iris Potter, aged 14. In the middle of the night. His own body is back at the same age again as well. Normal and Fem!Harry working together as siblings, and siblings only. ON HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1 - Dominus

**Chapter 1 - Dominus**

* * *

Harry looked around, taking in the battlefield of the final battle against Voldemort. It was estimated that over seventy percent of the remaining population of magical britain was out here fighting for one side or the other. However, now, a few hours after the start, it was hard to find survivors. To prevent enemies from fleeing, they'd done a ritual that would disable all forms of space bending in magical britain - for a limited time. Both Portkeys and Apparition used that, so it would block them. Floo's and phoenix travel were the only forms of travel still available, and Voldemort currently had access to neither. Unlike previous attacks, this battle was fought.

He stepped forward, invisibility cloak on his shoulders. He'd mastered it to the point where he could redirect its functions - temporarily sacrificing the invisibility for a minor defense against hostile magic. It was about as good at stopping curses as his basilisk skin armor had been before, but was much lighter. The Elder Wand felt warm in his hand - he'd been using it for years now, and its destructive nature was a perfect fit for his normal actions.

He was heading towards where he thought Voldemort would be. Time for a final showdown. He'd gotten a lot of scars since their last meeting, around five years back, in the atrium where Voldemort's return became public knowledge. Still, he'd avoided becoming Moody's lookalike. That counted for something.

He'd been alone for the last while. He'd had allies against Voldemort, of course. They'd all helped him fight in this battle. But his friends had all died before this specific battle even started. Ron had held off five death eaters, taking out two, while buying time for Luna to escape with a group of firsties. Neville had been killed by Voldemort himself for his destruction of Nagini. Ginny had been stuck in a warehouse with about 20 death eaters, and nobody had come out. Harry suspected she'd set the fiendfyre herself. Luna'd saved Harry's life by taking a Killing Curse for him. Hermione had been poisoned, while pregnant of her and Harry's child, and nobody had been able to save her. She herself had been their dedicated healer.

Harry had made new friends of course, but none of them as close as the other of the Ministry Six had been. He got along alright with most of the puffs of his year, as well as a few of the ravens.

He could feel the magic in front of him. He was getting close, and he found one of Voldemorts outer guards. He raised his wand, and spoke a single word.

_Dominus._

A while line instantly connected Harry to the death eater. He could feel their magic being measured against each other. Of course, Harry had a lot more. The Death eater exploded, his magic escaping into the air.

Between Harry and Voldemort, this spell was the nuclear weapon of this war. None had ever survived a cast from either Harry or Voldemort of it. It was instant, and could not be defended against. Of course, that was said about a Killing Curse, but the Dominus was different. It didn't care about physical barriers in the way. Having no travel time, it could not be dodged. It simply compared the caster and the target, and the weaker one died. Quite messily. The wild magic released sometimes had weird effects, like a child's accidental magic.

And Harry had lost count of how many he'd killed with it. Voldemort probably had as well.

* * *

Harry finally found his nemesis. The.. man, for lack of a better word to describe the monstrosity on both a moral and physical level. His attraction had been gotten by Harry's eradication of his guard. Neither of them was able to know for certain who would win when either cast a Dominus, so therefore they started off with some of the more mundane spells. Voldemort started with a generous sprinkling of crucio's and avada kedavra's, while Harry used a few blasting curses, followed by transfiguring the shrapnel to stinging insects. Voldemort summoned an almost invisible silvery layer on his skin, which looked like shape-modified version of an anti-physical shield. Then he followed it up with some fiendfyre, which Harry countered with his own. Voldemort's basilisks against Harry's phoenixes, and totally hiding both from view of the other.

Harry lobbed a few heavy ball lightning curses. They were affected by gravity, so he could throw them on top. They'd also lethally electrocute everything in a distance proportional to the power put into the spell. This was a delaying tactic, however, as even if Voldemort hadn't seen them before as far as he knew, he'd probably be able to counter them. Harry rose upward. He'd never mastered unaided flight like Voldemort did, but that didn't matter with a couple enchanted rods at strategic places on his body. Then he he started pushing on the fiendfyre with his magic, hoping to force voldemort into spending power by dispelling it. The push would come at the same moment as that his ball lightnings would hit the ground behind him.

Then the fiendfyre shook, and moved in weird ways. As if it was a liquid sucked in a drain. This wasn't the normal way to put it out, but at worst, it was slightly more efficient. As soon as the fiendfyre didn't shield the area behind from his magical sensing anymore, he started casting confringo's where he could pinpoint Voldemort. He couldn't hope to actually land a hit, so he needed area curses. However, Voldemort rose up in flight as well, which put that strategy down. For a short while, they duelled, trading the darkest magic between them. Harry dodged a soul shredding curse. As far as he knew, it was the only way to kill a phoenix, and he knew this spell killed Fawkes. However, despite Harry knowing that with the Elder Wand, he was a better fighter than Dumbledore had ever been. He was even better than Voldemort had been a few years ago, but those few years of the most intense magical warfare ever had honed Voldemort's skills as well. Harry wouldn't beat him, and Voldemort knew it, starting to taunt him. So he aimed his wand, and bet the fate of the world on chance.

_Dominus_

Voldemort looked in surprise, and Harry could feel the spell take effect, stopping their duel while it measured them, both unable to cast anything. They started falling slowly, and they felt the Dominus build up. They slowed down before they hit the ground, the excess magic pushing off against anything close to them. Then Harry felt his reserves exceed Voldemorts by just a little bit. He also was Tom's eyes widen. Then he exploded, flinging Harry back.

Despite Harry knowing he wasn't that far above ground, he kept falling. He didn't see anything. Then suddenly, he hit something with a tud, then felt himself crash into what felt a lot like a solid wall, as if he was indoors. He knew that walls were generally slightly softer than rocks, even if he preferred not to think about having sufficient experience to tell the difference. He hit the floor a moment after. His eyes could see something, but mostly just vague shapes. He heard a girl's scream, and then everything became black.

* * *

James Charlus Potter woke in the middle of the night from a scream, and he bolted out of his bed. He knew Lily'd woken up as well, but he didn't exactly wait up for her as he ran to his eldest daughter's bedroom. He kicked the door open. Iris upright in bed, clutching the blankets against her. On the opposite side of the room, a strange boy lay that he couldn't see the features off, except for black hair and somewhat damaged clothing. He immediately threw a stunner at the boy. After all, easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. He then walked to his daughter, who'd just stopped screaming, but still didn't seem entirely coherent.

"Iris? What happened?"

She took a few deep breaths. "I don't know.. I woke up from a loud thud and suddenly there's someone who looks like he was thrown into my wall by a blasting curse..."

Lily entered the room, wand drawn.

"What happened?"

"Intruder. Hasn't done anything as far as I know, but I'm really curious how he got in here. Judging by the size, looks to be a kid around as old as Iris."

A wave of his wand, pulled the boy upright, and against the wall. He heard a strong gasp from his wife and daughter, and looked at them quizzically.

"He looks… almost exactly like you." Lily was the first to speak. Then she turned to her daughter.

"Anybody you've ever seen at Hogwarts?"

"No, never." She looked a bit closer. "So this is what Dad looked like at my age?"

"Could be his twin."

James frowned.

"As far as I'm aware, I have no relations closer than a second cousin, not counting Iris and Rose. And that's the Black family."

He cast a magical detection spell, but couldn't find any glamours.

"Perhaps polyjuice? If someone found an old hair of mine… Anyway, let's tie him to a kitchen chair or something, and let's ask him a few questions. Like how he got in here, and why."

He levitated the boy downstairs, both his wife and daughter following him. In the kitchen, he emptied the boy's pockets. He found a wand with a curled string of elderberries elaborately carved just above the grip. The boy had a golden ring with a black stone with some strange sigil on a chain on his neck. He also found a small purse with some money and a Gringotts key, but that was everything. The boy's clothes seemed like good quality, but well worn. It was also a bit too big for the boy, obviously geared towards a fit adult man. James himself was slightly jealous of whoever had the muscle mass and lack of belly that these clothes implied. When he grabbed the cloak, it felt strangely familiar. He took the cloak off the boy, and it changed to a garment he recognized immediate. His own invisibility cloak. How had he not detected the magic of the change? He knew nothing could detect the cloak's own magic. But whatever transfiguration it'd been under should have been detected.

"Iris, it looks like he stole the cloak from you."

"But… I had it in my trunk. At the bottom. Under the blood lock, AND a separate notice-me-not. And the trunk was closed when we went downstairs."

James frowned. He KNEW this was his cloak. Well, Iris's now, but that was irrelevant.

Lily suddenly asked: "Perhaps more of these exist? It's not like you've told everyone - no reason to believe nobody else would either. Honey, would you mind checking if yours is still where it should be?"

Iris nodded, and went upstairs to check.

James looked at his wife.

"Do you still keep that stash of Veritaserum ready?"

Lily nodded.

"I'd like to know how he invaded our home without the wards telling me so. Even now, the wards claim that he's a resident."

Lily's eyes grew slightly, but went to her potions lab to retrieve her Veritaserum. It wasn't exactly legal, but as a potions' mistress, she was allowed to possess it, if not use it. And it wasn't like anybody was going to find out.

Iris got back first, with the invisibility cloak under her arm. She put it on and disappeared before James' eyes, then took it off again.

James frowned. "I'd have sworn that this one was ours."

Iris nodded. "Me too. But apparently he's not a thief. Or at least, not for this cloak."

She took a chair and sat down. James took two more, and after a minute Lily rejoined them. She fed the boy three drops of Veritaserum, then enervated him.

* * *

Slowly, light came back into Harry's world. He found himself strapped to a chair, which was both good at bad news. The bad news was, he was imprisoned. The good news - he felt around for a moment with his magic - he had the stone on a chain, his cloak was not on but near, as was his wand. Apparently his captors weren't that well-informed.

He managed to slowly open his eyes, but saw blurry. That was curious. He hadn't needed glasses for quite a long while. All it'd taken was a simple ritual. He couldn't sense a spell interfering with his sight, but perhaps it was some undetermined muggle means. He lifted his head, and looked around. Well, tried to. He was indoors. Whoever owned this room had decorated it in colors of yellow and red, though there was some variety. He heard a bit of whispering behind a _muffliato_, and he could make out three blobs of colors that were probably people. It seemed that one had red hair and a green robe, one had black hair and a pink robe, and one had black hair and an almost black robe. Then they ended the privacy charm, and a man asked:

"What is your name?"

That was weird. Everyone knew his name.

"You first."

He heard another few gasps. What _was_ that about ? It wasn't as if it was rare to be defiant during questioning, right ?

…

Right ?

Harry looked outside his occlumency barriers. Ah, that's why. Veritaserum. Always check that before you get interrogated. If you were lucky, they didn't give him enough to overwhelm him. He'd always been quite resistant to the stuff, but since he'd learned true occlumency, he'd sometimes failed to notice it.

He felt his head pulled backwards, and let them drip another three drips on his tongue. He needed about 20, which was lethally poisonous to most people, but which didn't impact him much more than 3 drops did other people. Still, it might be better to retain the capability to lie. He took a careful step outside his barriers, to answer the questions as if he were under it.

"What is your name?"

Well, it wasn't like it was such a secret. He could feel his mind supply the answer the veritaserum wanted, but he could choose to give it or not.

"Harry James Potter."

He heard soft whispering, and a _muffliato_ go up.

What the hell was going on?

He waited patiently until the spell went down again.

"When and where were you born?"

Harry shrugged. Common knowledge.

"31 Juli of 1980. I believe in Godric's Hollow, but I am not sure."

A few whispers, the loudest of which was a "_silent!_"

"Who were your parents?"

What was it with these dumb questions? Everyone already knew all of this.

"James Charlus Potter and Lily Mary Potter nee Evans."

The muffliato went up again. It wasn't like anyone was able to capture him, but those interrogators seemed incredibly ill-prepared. Harry was used to a bit more… professionalism. Death Eaters tended to know him on sight, and either try to kill him or run for their lives. Since it's gotten around about the Dominus, mostly the second. Having to discuss after the test questions was… silly. And he still couldn't figure out how they obstructed his sight. Then he got a really stupid, really silly idea. And he looked at his nose.

He could see it sharp, in full detail. That wasn't supposed to be able after he fixed his eyes. Had something reverted that ritual? Were more things about him reverted?

He balled his left hand, and almost screamed in surprised. His ring finger was back. He hadn't even noticed. He tensed a bit against the bonds. His body felt a little bit more sluggy. The proportions were also a bit off - he was used to more muscles. Also, it was either a tall chair, or his legs were shorter. It seemed like his body had just grown… younger, and even reversing changes that were made to it…

His blood turned to ice. Reversing changes… was the horcrux back ? He send out his magic, and investigated his scar, then he almost sighed in relief. There was no horcrux there. But… there was something else horcrux-like in the room. He tracked with his eyes. Direction was the pink blob with black hair. The robes were an eye-watering color, and that meant the wearer would have to be Dumbledore, Lockhart, or a witch, and he knew the former two were dead.

The privacy spell dropped again. Apparently, they wanted to ask some more questions.

"How did you get in here?"

Harry frowned.

"I don't know. I don't even know where here is?"

"Don't play stupid. You were in my daughter's bedroom, and none of us let you in there. Now spill, or I will see you in Azkaban for breaking and entering."

Azkaban ? But it was destroyed…. He himself had torched it with Fiendfyre, in hopes of killing the dementors before they could join Voldemort. It'd even worked.

However, it made no sense. Even if someone had rebuild it - and he'd have known if they had - both sides of the conflict started preferring executions over imprisonment. It was a lot more reliable to keep hostiles off the battlefield.

And even if it were rebuild, he could escape it. But that probably wasn't the point.

"Nevertheless, I still have no idea how I ended up here. May I ask the date?"

"The date.. Young man, exactly how drunk were you?"

Harry couldn't completely stop a snort. He did smile though.

"I don't recall drinking any alcohol for at least a week."

"It's 2 July 1994."

"What !?"

Harry was shocked straight into his occlumency shields again, forgetting that he'd probably informed them he wasn't exactly bothered by Veritaserum. It had been the year 2000. He looked sharp at the figure in the middle, from which the male voice had originated. Even if he couldn't see him well, he knew where the eyes were. That was enough for legilimency. He launched his attack. The man's shield were certainly there, but he just batted them aside and marched in. It was indeed 2 July 1994. Or at least, before they'd gone to bed it was - he didn't know the time of the night. Hogwarts was still a school, instead of the fortress and smoking ruins it'd been in Harry's past 2 years. He also got a few sharp images. The most prominent person right now was a girl Harry's age, with black hair and green eyes much like Harry himself. There was even a lot of the same in their face, even if the girl's was more feminine. She also hadn't been starved like Harry had been at that age, which probably made up for most of the differences. She also shared his scar. Apparently, she was this man's daughter. Harry slipped slightly in his legilimency because of how similar she was to him. She even shared his date of birth….. Another image came, and Harry right away recognized this woman as his mother. This man had known her for a long time. The mental image he had of her consisted of her through her school years, and even with the pregnancy she'd had. Strangely enough, this man thought of her as his wife….

Who was this man actually?

Harry took a look, and he was surprised so silent that the man ejected Harry from his mind. Still, he was so surprised he couldn't do a thing. This man was James Potter. Not just believed he was. There was nowhere near the required amount of self-deception in that brain to allow for mistaken identity. This man was James Potter, and had been James Potter his entire life. Which had started in 1959. WHAT.

_Fumos_

A small wisp of mist sprang to life right in front of Harry's eyes. He couldn't even bring himself to care. He felt a few tears trace his cheeks. What was going on? Who was cruel enough to give him false hope? He slumped down in his chair.

What if it were true? Perhaps he went to an alternate world or something. The aftermath of the Dominus spell could be weird, and was weirder and more powerful the more powerful the destroyed magical was. Perhaps Voldemort had fuelled his journey to another world?

James pulled back quickly after throwing the stranger out. That legilimency attack had been… painful. It also made him feel completely powerless, which he didn't like in the middle of his own home, under his own wards, while the other person was tied up and dosed with Veritaserum. Which didn't appear to affect him much. How could this.. Boy that resembled himself and Iris so much have learned this sort of offensive magics? He was only 14 for Merlin's sake. At least, unless he had lied. But he did look the part. He turned to his ladies.

"He just… attacked me with legilimency." He waved his wand, and cast a weakened mist spell to prevent any further eye-contact. Lily was the first to answer.

"Headache? Did he bypass?"

"No, just tore my shields apart as if I were a newborn. He checked whether or not I was lying about the date at first, then stumbled across Iris here. I don't think he saw much beyond her looks. Then you. Then he checked who I was, and it seemed to… surprise him terribly. I was able to throw him out while he was surprised. All in all… no deep secrets spilled but...It just feels weird."

He looked at his girls. Well, two out of three. Rose had so far slept through everything.

"What if he is who he says? A Harry Potter from another world?"

Iris choose this moment to speak up.

"But.. Harry? Seriously? That's not a nice name or anything.. It's nowhere in the family. Why'd he be called Harry of all names?"

Lily blushed. "To be honest, if you'd been born a boy, Iris, you'd have been a Harry. I just… always liked that name, and James was fine with it."

Iris gave her best imitation of a fish, soundlessly opening and closing her mouth.

"That.. makes sense them. I'm suddenly glad I'm a girl. So… what do we do?"

They heard a cough. Apparently, 'Harry' was trying to say something.

"I think I know at least a little bit about all of you. At least, the general idea. How about I show any of you what's going on? Any of you know legilimency?"

Lily looked at James. She flicked her wand, reactivating the muffliato.

"I want to do it. I want to find out what's going on."

James looked in doubt. Then he sighed. "Just.. be careful, ok ?"

Lily nodded, then dispelled the muffliato as well as James' mist.

"Look at me."

The boy's startling green eyes looked at her. Exactly the same as her daughters'. Their focus was more along the lines of the Lovegood girl, however. But it was good enough. She made herself comfortable on her chair, and pointed her wand at him.

_Legilimens_

* * *

Lily found herself in front of a version of Hogwarts. There the boy was - but older. He smiled, but a bit uncertain.

"To be honest, I never showed all of this to anyone. But I think that if you are to understand..." he shrugged, helplessly. As he seemed to become more vulnerable, the great doors of Hogwarts opened.

"Follow me." He started walking inside. "We're heading to the Chamber of Secrets."

Lily walked up to him to join him, but she blanched at that word.

"The Chamber of Secrets? But Iris..."

"It was opened in her second year, and she killed the basilisk?"

Now she looked suspicious.

"How do you know that?"

He brushed his hand through his hair, meanwhile leading her to the grand staircase.

"A friend of mine once told me about multiverse theory. I might be wrong of course… but I'm guessing that there's gonna be a lot that Iris and I have in common. At least, I'm afraid so."

"Afraid so?"

He smiled sadly at her.

"If she is just me but in another world, I'd prefer her to have a better life than me. But, judging by what I've seen so far, it does seem to be that way."

That had Lily speechless for a moment. He'd had it worse than Iris ? The girl was fourteen. She survived a murder attempt at 15 months, which left James' parents dead. She'd fought a troll together with her best friend Hermione at 11. Later that year she killed a possessed professor. The year after it was a Merlin-be-damned basilisk. Then the previous year the traitorous rat bastard escaped, and there had been dementors around the school.

If he really was Iris but in another world, and he'd had it worse… she was torn between never wanting to find out, or find out how her own counterpart had failed so incredibly bad. And do everything she could for this boy. Man? He looked to be around 25 here.

They reached the second floor, and Harry led her to Myrtle's bathroom. Iris had told about that, so that was the same at least. He strode up to the sinks in the middle, and hissed something she could not comprehend. She winced. That parselmouth talent had given Iris a lot of grief. Then he hissed something else, and a platform appeared. He stepped on it, and gestured her to join him.

"This disc isn't there in reality. I just made it in my mindscape because it's a lot more convenient."

Lily nodded. She'd never actually been in her Chamber of Secrets. But she supposed it was a good place to store memories you didn't want others to see.

"It's funny that we both have Hogwarts for our mindscape. I just used the library instead of the Chamber."

Harry smiled. "I use the library for knowledge, and for decoy memories. All harmless memories are also there. However, everything I really want to keep secret is in the chamber. Which… includes everything I want to show you."

They arrived at the bottom. It didn't look much like Iris' description. Apparently, the mindscape version was cleaned up considerably. The corridor was also far shorter than the real one had been, if Iris had been accurate in her descriptions. The door with the snakes was right around the corner, and Harry opened it for her with another hiss. Then he hissed something in the room. A shape suddenly came into view, and she screamed out of reflex.

"Relax. I just told her to keep her eyes closed. I might have killed the real basilisk… but I decided I wanted her as guardian here anyway."

She noticed that the beast indeed kept it's eyes closed. It sniffed her, then slithered away again. Harry brought her to the statue, and opened a well-hidden door for her.

"Is that door real? Iris never talked about it..."

"It is in my world. However, I only found out when I was seventeen. There's some useful things in there. It'll help her get the maximum possible from her parselmouth talent."

He led her in, and it showed to be a modest study, with a few walls filled with bookshelves. She managed to not drool.

Harry went over, and grabbed a book on the bottom left corner.

"My oldest memory." He looked at Lily. "It is only thanks to the dementors that I can recall this one." He held it out to her, and she found herself in the memory unbidden.

"_Lily! Grab Harry and get out! I'll hold him off..."_

She came out of the memory, and tears sprang in her eyes. Now she knew what was worse. James and her had died there. But why wouldn't he be raised by his grandparents?

"If we want to do this in any reasonable time, we're going to have to go quick. Shall I just keep feeding them to you?"

Lily nodded, and steeled herself. Harry had obviously been alone. But no longer. She might not have physically given birth to him, but another her had. He was her son regardless, and she'd look after him.

* * *

Outside, James and Iris noticed that tears had sprung up in Lily's eyes. She gave no sign of pain, or discomfort. Just tears. James settled next to her, and held her hand.

It turned out he held her hand for two hours. Iris went back to bed. Lily's tears kept flowing. After an hour, he body started to shake a bit, and James held her, but he knew she wouldn't really notice it until she came back. Then she suddenly drew back, and breathed in, only to collapse in sobs. At first she grabbed onto him, but then she jumped out of her chair towards Harry, and not even caring for the ropes he'd been bound with, pulled him into a hug. Harry put up his arms to hold her.

"It's Ok, Lily. I won in the end."

Lily pulled back, then noticed the ropes.

"Young man, how did you raise your arms with those ropes?"

At least Harry had the decency to look a bit guilty.

"I.. might have used a bit of a wandless diffindo? I didn't want you to lose your balance and fall."

"Wandless magic? Then why'd you let yourself be bound?" James interrupted.

"I might have played a bit innocent for a bit. Usually when you get captured and you don't know where or by who, it's good to figure out as much as possible before you break out. There's generally some time. People taking the effort to give you veritaserum tend to not avada kedavra you right away. And well, it's not like you can keep my wand from me."

He flicked his wrist. James had sat himself down on the boy's wand, and it disappeared from under him, falling into the boy's hand.

Lily turned to James.

"Let him. He thinks he came here by accident from another world. It sounds… weird but it's the most logical explanation there is." She turned to Harry. "I'm so sorry that other we couldn't be there for you. But if they're, well, seperate from us but they are like us, then I know they'll be incredibly proud of you for what you've managed to accomplish under those despicable circumstances." She turned to James again.

"I'll tell you the long version later… but your parents had died earlier than here. That means that at Samhain 1981, you and I both died while Harry survived." She took a deep breath, but her next sentence came out in a whimper. "He was left with the Dursleys." She looked helpless, and James winced in response.

"I'm sorry, Harry."

Lily resumed again. "If I'm really nice to them, I'd call it criminal neglect. He came to Hogwarts severely underweight. I do think Pomprey slipped him some nutrition potions, though. He improved quite fast throughout that first year. Every shitty thing that happened to Iris, Harry experienced to. But unlike Iris… well, he didn't have us. That means his second year was… terrible. He also showed me some things that may still happen in our future…. If we fail to change it. Also, he's twenty. For him, it was the year 2000 yesterday."

James saw the pleading in her eyes, and knew exactly what she wanted. He looked at Harry.

"It's clear that Lily wants to help you. If you are willing… I think we'd love to offer you to stay with us. You can have a family. And with your help…" James thought for a moment. "I understand you wouldn't want to go through all that again. But even if all you do is give advice and warning, then we can probably ensure that Iris won't have it as bad as you."

Harry looked up with a vulnerability that was hard to believe from someone who'd before been so hardened. A deep pain, of someone who had been betrayed again and again. But who had never given up hope.

"You'll let me stay? Really?"

"Yes. So what are you gonna do?"

"Please."

"Understood. And what will you do?"

Harry smiled.

"I swear that I am up to no good."


	2. Chapter 2 - The Potters

**A/N 1: I disliked the last few lines of chapter 1, so I changed it a little bit. It makes more sense now. There's also a new Author's note at the top of that story, which I will also put down here:**

**A/N 2: Rowling later released the knowledge that the Death Eaters were once called the Knights of Walpurgis. Which is like, a hundred times more awesome. It sounds noble, dark and dangerous. Death Eaters sounds like it's been thought up by a fifteen year old girl who paints her fingernails black and gets wet when she fantasizes about a century-old vampire watching her sleep. Therefore, Death Eaters will now be referred to as Knights of Walpurgis for this story.**

**A/N 3: Rose's Birthday is 12 december. Putting it here because it's probably never going to be plot-relevant enough to make a big deal out of it.**

* * *

**Chapter 2 - The Potters**

* * *

Harry awoke in a very soft situation that he had far to little recent experience with. It was called a warm bed. Eyes still closed, he felt around. So incredibly soft. It'd been months since he'd been able to sleep in one. However, morning called. He got out of bed, showered, and dressed. At James' request, he'd remain upstairs a bit, so that the Potters could prepare their younger daughter, Rose. She was to start her first year at Hogwarts, being about two and a half year younger than Iris and Harry.

It was still weird. The girl was probably… a sister ? Twin sister, if that. They had the same birth date. And they still had to figure out an excuse to explain to the world where he came from. Perhaps they'd thought him a squib at first? No one'd believe that. Besides, he was crap at acting. While he could probably hide some of his skill at hogwarts, if surprised he'd always cast accurately. Purposely messing up your spells was liable to be noticed by experienced teachers like McGonagall or Flitwick. A long lost cousin? Yeah, right, with his eye color. Not. A kidnapped twin to Iris? They'd never have kept that silent.

He didn't want to suggest infidelity by either parent. Besides, he was clearly a mix between then. His train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door. Out of habit, he checked the Elder Wand in his wand holster on his right arm, the spare wand in the holster on his left, and the emergency wand on the inner side of his thigh. The ring around his neck. It was too gaudy to wear normally, and he didn't want to waste his hand on it. It's use wasn't dependent on holding it like that anyway. At least, not it's true use - only the rudimentary spirit summoning required holding it in your hand.

The cloak was on his back, but it obediently shrunk and disappeared under his collar. He had no need for invisibility, or even a normal cloak right now. The glasses he needed were too different from James to have anything available, and Iris and Rose had never needed them. Therefore, he instead cast a rather finicky spell Hermione had insisted he learn for emergencies, back before he'd fixed his eyesight the first time around. He went to the door, and opened, finding Lily.

"Can you come downstairs to breakfast? I think we have Rose ready to introduce you."

"Ok." Harry tried not to be nervous. It didn't really work. He hadn't been nervous yesterday, but he'd also been quite a bit underway with the interrogation before he'd figured out who they were, due to him having been basically blind.

He joined his mum on the way downstairs. It was a really, really weird idea to finally have a mum, but it was a surprisingly comfortable, warm idea.

At the breakfast table, James was already seated, as was Iris. Next to Iris sat a younger girl, with red hair slightly darker than her mothers'. She had a rounder face than Harry or Iris had, which made her look more innocent, and even a bit cute. Her features were a bit softer than Iris's. She also looked up immediately when he entered.

"Mum and Dad said I'd get an older brother." She paused a moment. "Most people only get younger siblings."

Harry smiled.

"I'm Harry. I'll be your big brother from now on."

"I'm Rose." She looked at him for a moment, her head tilted slightly to the side.

"You look nice." She smiled, then jumped of her chair, ran to him, and jumped into a hug with him, her arms around his neck and her feet dangling around his shins.

"Welcome to the family, brother Harry."

Harry smiled as he hugged her back.

"It's my honor, sister Rose."

That caused her to giggle, and she let go, Harry gently letting her down to the floor. Rose walked back to the table.

"How old are you?"

"Exactly as old as Iris. I think it may also be a good idea to join her class at Hogwarts."

Rose nodded. "Yep. You're still not allowed to use magic at home otherwise."

"Indeed."

He looked at Li - he looked at his mother. That thought would take some getting used to. Then he send a gently legilimency probe at her, the mind magic equivalent of politely knocking on the front door. When she allowed him a bit closer, he spoke in her head.

"I think it's best for me to go to Hogwarts, to avoid attracting attention? We still need to figure out a way to explain my existence, though..."

Lily smiled as she answered, just as mentally.

"Don't worry. We'll figure it out. I was thinking, perhaps we could tell people that you were kidnapped, and James and I were obliviated of your existence?"

"Wouldn't you have noticed that? You may not be masters of occlumency, but memory locks about subjects you'd care this much about would never pass either of you unnoticed."

"You and I know that we'd figure it out if they did, but the rest of the world doesn't."

Harry nodded, and continued eating, looking for a way to break the ice. This was getting awkward. But inspiration struck. He was the son of a Marauder, after all.

$Iris, could you hand me the bacon?$

Iris, still mostly asleep this early in the morning, handed it over, not noticing all three others looking at her.

$Here.$

$Thanks.$

Harry tried, but couldn't prevent an amused smirk. After a few more seconds, Iris finally noticed the total silence from the rest of the table.

"What?"

Her parents exchanged a glance, then looked at Rose. Then James spotted Harry's smirk, and having figured it out, started chuckling. Iris retaliated with a glare, until Lily came to her aid.

"Honey, did you or did you not notice you just spoke parseltongue?"

Iris blinked. Then she slowly looked at Harry, at which point he couldn't stop himself anymore, and collapsed in laughter, which spread to James right away. Rose didn't fully get it, but also joined in.

Iris pouted, and addressed her mother.

"Muuum, Harry is bullying me."

"Aw, poor baby." Her mother replied.

Harry looked at his totally helpless sister.

$I can make it up to you, nest-mate. Salazar left some books on parselmagic in the Chamber.$

She glared at him.

$Fine. I'll..$" forgive you after that."

She frowned.

"Why did it stop?"

"Parseltongue doesn't know the concept of forgiveness. So in order to vocalize it, you had to switch back to English. Same as the word I used not meaning sister, but nest-mate. While parseltongue uses gendered pronouns just like most languages, the gender of your nest-mates is just completely irrelevant. Therefore, those words don't have it."

Iris whispered a few words, falling back into hissing a few times.

"You're right."

"You also need more practice. If you're practiced, you'll be able to switch to parseltongue and back without issues, and regardless of snakes present."

"I'll- I will-" She attempted. $I'll keep that in mind.$

$That's a good start - better then I could have at this age. Also, we now have a secret language just between us.$

"Like we're ever going to need that."

"You never know, sister mine."

She frowned at his designation for her.

"Do you like saying sister for some reason?"

Harry looked down, and flushed a little bit.

"It's just that… " He looked up, and took a deep breath. "When I looked into the Mirror of Erised, all I saw was my family around me."

A silence fell for a moment.

"Harry?" Iris said softly. "Brother, you can call me sister whenever you like.."

Harry smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

"Me too!" Rose interrupted. "I also like having both a brother and a sister."

Harry turned his smile on her as well, and reached out to ruffle her hair a bit, which she tried to pull away from.

"And I like having two sisters. And between me and Iris, we're going to keep you entirely safe at school."

Iris then ruffled her hair from the other side.

"And as long as I think you're to young, I'm gonna have our brother chase all the boys away from you."

Rose pouted. "I don't see what boys would want with me anyway… you're much prettier than I am."

"Red hair like yours and mom's is much prettier than mine. Mom had hordes of boys after her."

James chose that moment to interrupt.

"I think you're both beautiful and cute girls. When you're old enough, both of you will have your pick of the suitors. Perhaps when you're like twenty-five or something."

Iris pouted. "That's what every parent ever says."

"Doesn't make me wrong."

Iris switched her pout to a glare, which James completely ignored.

* * *

A few minutes later, a snow owl flew in, carrying the Daily Prophet. Harry looked at her immediately. She dropped off the paper in front of James, but then landed in front of Iris to take her share of bacon and attention. Harry needed a few seconds to regain the power of speech.

"Hedwig?"

The owl looked up for a moment, then resumed full attention to gobbling up the bacon strips Iris had given her.

Iris looked at her owl.

"Go on Hedwig. That's Harry, my brother. Go introduce yourself."

Hedwig hopped over, looking at Harry with a curious gaze, as if she sort of recognized him, but not entirely.

Harry reached out with a single finger, and scratched the one place he knew she really liked - on her breast, slightly left, but not as far as a folded up wing would be.

"Preck."

She obviously appreciated that spot as much as the Hedwig he'd lost two years ago. Her eyes closed almost immediately.

"You think we're gonna be friends, pretty girl?"

"Preck." Hedwig nodded, preened, and nibbled at his finger for a moment, almost reassuringly. He decided to hand her another strip of bacon.

"Pleased to meet you again, Hedwig."

After James had determined that there was nothing of any interest whatsoever in the prophet, he decided to break the silence, spotting all his women watching Harry talk with a bird who by all rights should have no idea what he was talking about, but who seemed to understand nonetheless. Must like when Iris herself did exactly the same thing.

"So Harry, how are you at Quidditch?"

Harry smiled. "Became seeker at my first flying lesson. First time I could remember sitting on a broom. I caught a Rememberall that'd been throw across the field, and McGonagall saw me catch it."

Iris gasped. "You actually went after Malfoy when he stole that..."

"Yes. Neville had dropped it. After I confronted Malfoy in midair, he threw it away as far as he could. I caught it a foot or two above the ground."

"But Madam Hooch threatened with expulsion! Even though I know Malfoy got away with just a detention, you couldn't have known that."

Harry sighed. "I'm not saying I was all rational. Anyway, you on the team?"

"Chaser. Might have been dad's influence."

Harry frowned. "With whom? I have a hard time imaging us without the Flying Foxes, which is what all Gryffindor called Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell."

"Spinnet, you say? I'll admit she's decent. It was a close call during tryouts, and she's our reserve. Who's your reserve then, without me being there?"

"We never had any. In my fifth year though, we got Demelza Robins as new chaser, who is two years younger than us. She was a decent chaser, if not up the the level of the other girls we had. Who is your seeker when you don't have a Potter for the spot?"

Iris gave a slight sneer. "McLaggen"

Harry joined her sneer. "He a douche here as well?"

"Yup. Last year tried to convince me to "shower together" after a match. After I tempered his interest, he spend the night in the hospital wing."

Harry grinned. "Good job, sis. But I'll just go kick his ass in the tryouts, and that'll be that. I won't claim to be on Krum's level, but I'd say I'm pretty close. You can't imagine just how satisfying it is to pull a Wronski Feint on Malfoy."

Iris grinned back the mental image. "That sounds great. You owe showing me that one."

"Yes, ma'am."

"The prat bought his way on the team where you're from too?"

"Seven Nimbus 2001's. I don't recall him ever catching the snitch, though."

"He did in my second year against us. We got slaughtered in that game, to be honest. We had a crap seeker, and then with that bludger…."

"I was able to make the best of the situation. I guided my bludger through the ranks of the snake chasers, while Malfoy was busy all the time trying to taunt me instead of looking for the snitch. Even managed to almost knock him off his broom once with my bludger, but he managed to dodge it." Harry paused. "Vanished bones, courtesy of Lockhart?"

"Dad reported Lockhart for assault after the book shop signing, which I guess never happened for you. So he kept his distance." She smiled at her father, who looked as proud as a Hedwig who'd just been told she was pretty.

Harry mock glared at his sister. "I'm jealous. He had me act out scenes from his books."

Iris threw on a smug pureblood princess look, then winced on his behalf. "Thank Morgana that I was spared that. So did you actually see what happened to Mrs Norris, or were you pulled from the back lines of the student groups like me?"

"Front row seats. I had made the mistake of accepting Nick's Deathday party, and therefore we missed most of the feast. I followed the basilisk's voice for a few corridors, until we ran into Mrs. Norris with Hermione and Ron. We were standing there like morons when everyone else showed up..."

"Famous Potter luck. They accused you right away?"

"Luckily, that only started after the dueling club."

Iris frowned. "Why?"

"There's where Malfoy summoned a snake, and where I and everyone else discovered I was a parselmouth..."

Iris winced. "That's got to have been a nice surprise. I've known for longer. I once found a garden snake outside, and mum explained after that. However, somehow the rumor mill did figure it out. Was a bit later than the dueling club disaster, though."

Iris frowned. "Hermione once told me that I talk in my sleep, but she never heard me talk parseltongue while asleep. But if the other girls would have heard..."

"I've had it confirmed that I used it in my sleep. That'll get less with a bit more practice."

"So what was your team into the Chamber?"

"Team? It was me and Ron. And Lockhart I suppose."

"Lockhart going down there? How'd you manage that?"

"At wand point."

"Ah. Well, he tried to obliviate us in his office, but he used Ron's wand that was broken while we were in the forest with the acromantulas. So it backfired."

"Almost the same. Ron's wand broke at the start of the year, since we nicked his dad's flying car after we found the portal to platform 9 ¾ blocked. We crashed into the whomping willow. And we only disarmed him in his office, and took him downstairs to have advance warning if the basilisk would just show up."

"You stole a flying car when the portal was blocked? Why not just wait for his parents to come back out towards the car and ask them for help?"

"Yeah, I thought about that… a few weeks later." Harry grinned guiltily. "It was fun, though."

"Anyway, I had Ron and Neville with me down there. Neville got startled when he saw the snake skin, and cast a spell at it. It deflected off the skin, and caused a cave-in."

"We had the cave-in because of Lockharts' failed obliviation. So you were alone against Tom as well?"

"Yep." Iris popped the 'p' clearly. "The basilisk was the real problem though. I'd never have beaten it without Fawkes."

"Me neither. You ever processed the body?"

"Processed?"

"The meat alone is super expensive. It doesn't go bad and the goblins adore it. The eyestring makes for some rather destructively powerful wand cores. I'd make a great backup wand for you. The skin makes for totally amazing armor. The poison is quite expensive. The blood less, but it's still a valuable potion ingredient due to it's rarity and it's anti-toxicity."

Iris blinked. "I never thought about that." She looked at her parents, who exchanged a glance as well. Lily was the first to respond.

"We had… something else on our minds when we heard about it at first, and I'll admit that since it's been easier to not think about it if I can avoid it."

Harry grinned. "No worries. It'd been there for five years before we got around to it. But there probably won't be any regrets if you do it anytime soon… but I'd reserve the eyestrings, the skin, and part of the venom. Sell off the old skins as second class basilisk skin, it should be worth about half as much as Common Green Dragon skin, being about twice as heavy for basically the same magic resistance factor. And there's a veritable mountain of the stuff down there. Almost a thousand years of growing, shedding about once a year, and it ended up a good sixty foot long. Then I'd recommend to sell the blood, but not all at once, spreading it out over a few years instead. Same with the meat. Otherwise the price goes down to far. Most of the organs aren't valuable, though. But the bones make for nice ornaments, and basilisk bone is quite strong, even if it's quite heavy compared to the hollow dragon bones. Just think about it - hang it from the ceiling right in the Potter ballroom, so that everyone can see the basilisk you've slain." He grinned, quickly followed by James who understood the implications of showing off like that. Everyone who'd ever come to a Potter ball would be terrified to piss off Iris. The girl herself though, didn't look as happy yet.

"I did it because it was needed. You of all people should know that fame stinks."

Harry nodded. "I do. But unlike our stupid scar, this is deserved fame. You didn't look for it, but when someone was needed to step up and do what was necessary, you did that. This is entirely your own achievement. And yes, luck was involved - but we'd never have survived on dumb luck alone."

"I'll think about it."

"That's fine. Oh, and about the backup wand you could make… I'd grab an eyestring of basilisk and perhaps some bone of either Dementor or Thestral, instead of wood."

Iris frowned. "Why not just find a suitable wood? I like holly.."

"Aye, so we do. But I've… learned some things about wandlore. Using a part of a creature that you've slain yourself, especially one as powerful as a basilisk, makes it almost impossible for the wand not to be attuned to you. On top of that, the eyestring will be very compatible with a parselmouth like you and me. While we'd have to buy the Thestral bone, we could hunt down a Dementor for our purposes."

"How do you even kill a Dementor?"

Harry grinned. "I know of two ways. One, basilisk venom. Two, really overpowered Patronus. You could probably do that, if you can lock a dementor up for the required prolonged exposure. That also makes for better wand materials." He frowned. "I'm positive I could assemble it myself. That way, nobody will know about it."

"Thanks. Would you need one as well?"

"Nope. Already got two, and a really good first wand." He lifted the Elder Wand. "Here, hold it for a moment."

Iris accepted the wand. It felt cold and distant in her hands.

"This is why I don't need a backup wand, despite me carrying two."

Harry grasped in mid-air with his hand, and his wand appeared in his hand, disappearing from Iris'.

"As far as I'm aware, there is no way to block that."

"That's… really useful. Can you teach me?"

Harry shook his head. "It's part of this specific wand. But I there might be a chance that you can find this world's version of it. And.. it's got some more advantages." He looked at James. "Dad, can you create a _protego_ for a moment?" He grinned. James looked wary of potential pranks, but acquiesced. Harry took aim at his father.

"_Expelliarmus_"

The red spark of light - he'd cast the minimal version, no need to knock his father back - leapt from his wand, completely ignored the shield, and struck James, whose wand was launched into Harry's direction, who caught it and gave it back.

"I'm quite sure that if we make your second wand like I suggested, I can teach you how to do that. I won't promise I can, but it's likely. It has to do with the soul magic inherent to a basilisk's gaze or a Dementors' kiss. It ignores shields the same was as a killing curse would. Alternatively, it also lets you use a killing curse that can be blocked by any shield, or a shield that will block killing curses."

James was the first to respond. "That sounds.. Amazing. Question. Why does nobody know about this?"

"Well, most of it is forgotten. It's related to soul magic after all, and most other forms of soul magic have… consequences if you fail. However, you have heard about it. Since you're, well a Potter, you'll have heard of the tale of the three brothers?"

"The child's tale?"

"A Child's tale? While you've stolen food from the hogwarts kitchen after curfew using death's own cloak?"

"But..."

"How old is that cloak, dad?" Harry said softly. "And how long does a typical cloak of invisibility last?"

"M- most cloaks will fade after ten or twenty years, if it's good quality. I got ours from dad, who told me it was a family heirloom, and that he'd gotten it himself when he went to hogwarts.."

Harry looked between James and Iris. "Who would you say truly owns the cloak?"

James was the one that answered. "Iris. That's just how it goes. But now with you here…"

"I don't count. I have my own complete set. So, Iris, I want you to try and call the cloak towards yourself. Consider it a form of assisted wandless magic - much like saying 'Up' to a broom. Your expectation should be for it to appear on and around you, hiding you from everyone. There aren't any words required, but I've learned it myself with 'hide me'."

Iris frowned, but decided to give it a go. Her face scrunched up in concentration. Then she faded out of view.

"Very good, sis. This should help you get to safety if you ever get in trouble again."

Iris pulled the cloak off. "That felt… weird. I can now sense the cloak."

Harry nodded. "You already had the rights to the cloak - now it accepted you as it's true mistress."

"What's that mean? What's the difference?"

"Short version, it'll hide your smell and sound as well. With practice - a lot of practice - you can disable the invisibility effect, and make it morph into other clothing, within reasonable limits. All of that requires mental commands like the one you just called it with."

Iris eyes grew wide. "That's awesome. How come the family didn't know this?"

"Probably because no one ever tried. I have… some additional information, but that won't really be useful yet. If you want a starting point, try wearing the cloak while commanding it to remain visible. How's your occlumency?"

Iris pouted. "I hate occlumency."

"It's important. It'll also help you master this sort of thing a lot easier. Who's your teacher."

She gestured with her head. "Mum."

"Well, I can't compare of course, but she's bound to be a better teacher of occlumency than Snape."

The heads of all Potters whipped around to face him. Lily was the first to speak.

"Who in the blazes let him close to children, let alone teach you of all people occlumency?"

"Dumbledore. From your statement, can I infer that he's not the Potions teacher at hogwarts here?"

Iris was the first respondent.

"Thank Merlin, no. We have Slughorn. He's generally chill. At least, he was after mom had a little chat with him about pressuring me into the Slug Club. Now he's allowed to try again once a year, and only in writing."

"Ah, ok. I had him in sixth year. I would recommend you join up, though. Makes it easier if you need to get other people on your side later on. I know we don't like our fame, but that's no reason not to use it for the things we deem important."

Iris pouted. "But I don't wanna."

"Aw, poor little sister."

Harry leaned over and petted her hair, turning her pout into a glare.

Suddenly her glare vanished, and she turned to her father.

"Dad, the world cup! Can you get another ticket for Harry?"

"Eh, probably. I'll arrange it today, if you want to come?"

Harry nodded slowly. "Yes, that'll be a good idea. It will be… interesting."

This time, Lily was the one to respond. "Interesting is the exact word for all the things that we haven't managed to keep Iris out of. We'd appreciate to know what's going to happen, if there's any danger involved?"

"Ireland won. Krum got the snitch. A few hours after the match, there were a couple Knights of Walpurgis who decided to go relive the old times, and they tortured the muggle terrain holder for a bit, while blasting away tents. In the end, they were chased off when someone fired a Dark Mark into the sky. In a typical lack of effort, Minister Fudge prevented any and all investigations, probably at the behest of his good friend Malfoy." Harry looked up, and grinned. "So this time, around, I'll just fling a couple of neat lethal curses into the group, see if we can take out Malfoy senior like that."

"Are you sure we should be killing? I… don't like that."

Harry shrugged. "I know I don't look like it anymore.. But I've been doing just that for four years now. If this world is anything like the one I came from, and it does look like it, then it'll be open war in a bit over two years from now. If I can take out important Knights before then, I'd like to do so, and them all wearing their uniforms and torturing muggles gives me a proper reason. The group was about 20 last time. I'm pretty confident I can take out at least half permanently before they run away, since they won't expect it."

Lily swallowed, then looked at James. "We're talking premeditated murder here..."

"Technically, if it happens that way… it'd be classed self-defense. Also, I'm going to have to agree. If we can take out the important lieutenants before You-Know-Who comes back into power, we should. Before his curse reflected on Iris, it would have been a massive boon if they'd disappeared."

Lily nodded. "Ok. But do take care of yourself, ok? I just got you, but you're still my son and I don't want to lose you." She looked at Iris and Rose. "And you two ladies will stay as far away from that as possible. No buts. I already don't like Harry going to fight, but at least he's got experience."

Iris pouted again, but looked at Harry. "You will train me, right?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, but I don't think you'll be ready by then. It's only two weeks, after all."

"Fiiiine."

Harry got up from the breakfast table - they'd long finished eating, but just continued sitting and talking - and walked over, giving Iris a side hug.

"Trust me sis, you'll end up fighting a lot more than you'll want."

Iris sighed. "I know. I just want to be… useful. I need to get good enough."

She stood up, and made it a full hug.

"Thank you, big brother. Together, we'll teach Tommie a lesson in humility."

Harry smiled.

"Yes, my dear sister. We will."

Then Rose got up and hugged around them both.

"Sibling group hug!"

**A/N: I'd like to officially state that my main inspiration for writing this is I'm Still Here by kathryn518, story code 9704180 here on ffnet. Just replace it in the address bar in your browser if you're interested. Her Harry is quite different from mine of course. Mine is far less traumatized from his war than he has any right to, because what I wanted to explore was his new relation with his family. I feel like this story might not end up anything like her story, but that story is the single reason I'm writing this nonetheless, and I cannot recommend it enough. I also really like what she's doing with the basilisk venom/phoenix tears combination. However, I won't be repeating that here. I'm instead crossing the ruleset with the one I have developed/ am developing for another story yet unwritten. Part of this is what Harry is able to do with the Hallows. **


	3. Chapter 3 - Introductions

**Chapter 3 - Introductions**

* * *

The next few days, the Potters mostly just got used to the sudden appearance of their new son. The Quidditch World Cup, however, was looming on the horizon. With James' knowledge and agreement, Harry started teaching the more violent aspects of magic to Iris. This of course made Rose jealous as she also wanted to start learning magic, her first year approaching fast, so both of them occasionally gave her a lesson as well. Since the Potters had already gone to Diagon Alley for everyone before, Rose had her own wand. She was slightly disappointed she hadn't gotten a rosewood wand, but in the end she was perfectly happy with her Rowan wood and Unicorn Hair - especially after Lily told her that Rowan was closely related to the roses. Without to much trouble, they'd taught her both the _lumos _and _wingardium leviosa_. Harry had mostly focused on control with that second charm - with focus, you could also make an object drift sideways a bit.

Harry learned that the marauders had been doing a lot better in this world - Sirius was married to a Marlene McKinnon, who Harry had never heard of before. Aside from Mary, who was about Rose's age, he also had a 2 year younger son named John James McKinnon, after Marlene's father and Sirius' best friend. Remus was a self-employed enchanter, so that he could choose his own work times and plan around the full moon. He was still single, though.

* * *

Then one morning, Harry joined Iris in the kitchen while they were home alone - James was at work, while Lily had taken Rose to visit Sirius' daughter Mary, so their mothers could catch up as well.

"Sister, how about we go get the ingredients for your backup wand?"

She frowned. "Why now?"

"Because if I want to explain to mom and dad that we went hunting for dementors and break into hogwarts, I'd prefer to do it after the fact rather then when they can still object.."

Iris gasped. "You're planning _what_ exactly?"

Harry grinned. "Come on, family bonding experience. It'll be fun. I got a good plan for both. It's basically risk free."

"So what's that plan of yours?"

"..can't you just come along and see?"

"No. I've once asked that exact same question to Ron and Hermione, and I still can't comprehend why they were stupid enough to follow me without explanation. I doubt you're that much different from me that it'd suddenly be sensible."

Harry pouted exaggerated. "You're no fun. Fine, I want to apparate to Iceland first. It's the closest where there's still wild dementors around. I have a Snake patronus - I can grab a dementor and hold it still. Then you walk up to it, hold your wand down it's throat, and cast your own patronus."

Iris gaped. "Hold my wand down it's throat… is this what my plans sound like to my friends? Am I as totally insane as you are?"

Harry shrugged apologetically. "Hence why I'd prefer you'd just come. I know it'll work. I know of instances it did before. And about the insane levels of this plan, well, it's better thought out than when either of us went up against a Merlin-be-damned basilisk. But I might be used to a tad more danger than you because of the war and all."

She sighed. "Fine. I'll come."

He grinned. "Good. Bring the marauders' map. Then let's go outside, so I can apparate us."

She got the map from her trunk, went outside, and took his arm. She felt herself stretch out a tiny bit, then suddenly squeezed through a far to small tube, pressing in on her from all sides. From under the hand she held on Harry's arm, he felt warm, as if he was the sole beacon of heat and existence in the void. A moment later they emerged on a rocky field. She almost collapsed, but Harry caught her.

"You OK? I know side-along can be… unpleasant."

"I'm fine. And that… felt different. It felt different then when dad took me to Diagon Alley by apparition once."

Harry nodded. "At the risk of sounding a bit like Hermione… what most currently think of as apparition used to be referred to as emergency apparition. It's fast, and given sufficient power, you might break wards designed to counter it. That's very inefficient though. So I took a slower variant I'd been preparing since our talk. It takes some time to prepare, but the less intense wards can be bypassed without to much trouble if you know what you're doing. For instance, the apparition detection wards that are around every magical country. It's perhaps a little bit unpleasant to go through as well. But anyway, we're out now, and the ministry doesn't know someone without even a licence just apparated all the way to iceland - which they stupidly consider impossible."

"Then why are they wrong?"

"Because emergency apparition was developed for short distance only. The slower form I just used is much less power intensive at these distances. The power requirements increase linearly instead of quadratically. I can't quite jump to the other side of the planet, but I can get about halfway."

"That sounds… extremely useful. How do you know that many things about so different topics? Are you sure you were only twenty?"

"I've got an.. Advantage. It's my secret, for now. But I'm confident we'll get you the same one before you start your NEWTs. Now, lets see if we can find any dementors..."

He started waving his wand in wide motions, muttering under his breath. A variety of colors appeared in seemingly random patterns, until he stopped.

"Ok, closest is about ten kilometers eastwards. You coming?" He offered her is elbow.

Iris took it, and a moment later they were standing on the edge of a small glade, In the distance, they could see the dementor. It seemed to be only the one.

Harry kept his wand ready. "Ok. Follow me. Wait until I got it locked in place, then aim your wand down it's throat and cast your patronus." He hit her with a small cheering charm. "That should keep you well enough to do what you need."

"Can't you do the kill yourself?"

"Yes, I could, but the wand will be more suitable to you if you do it. Stay behind me until I got it, ok?"

"Ok."

He started walking towards the creature, and when it noticed them, it apparently considered them food, since it approached them. They could feel the cold set in, and a moment later they started feeling the effects on their minds when it tried to depress them. When they got into a range which Iris would normally call closer than comfortable, Harry raised his wand, and cast a silent patronus. A silvery snake came out of his wand, and rushed towards the dementor. At first it tried to flee, but the snake was a lot faster. Unlike the stag Iris was used to, it didn't strike the dementor, but it instead shot past, and curled around it, locking it's arms to its sides. After only a few seconds of struggle, the dementor was clearly locked in place.

Harry approached it, and pulled the tattered black cloak away from it's head, revealing it's eyeless disgusting face full of blotches. Iris forced herself to step forward, and while Harry and his patronus held the dementor still, she held the tip of her wand just over its mouth, and shouted:

_EXPECTO PATRONUM_

A white light shot into the dementors' mouth, and Harry stepped back, Iris following on instinct. The dementor seemed to fight harder against the snake for a moment. Then a light started to shine out of its mouth, ears, and even eyes, breaking through the skin. From there, the light started to spread, until it emitted light everywhere. Then the light faded, and Harry's snake slithered back to him. He gave it a pet, and it disappeared.

Where the dementor had been, now lay a tattered black cloak, and what looked like a blue-ish colored human skeleton in a pile of ash.

"Are they… human?" Iris asked.

"I don't know." Harry replied. "Whatever they are, they are an old race. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they were humans turned into these monsters."

He walked up to the pile of remains.

"Dementor ash is also valuable. The cloak has a few weird properties, which aren't terribly useful, but they can still be nice to have."

He took a shrunken trunk out of his pocket, which he'd obviously had gotten from Potter Manor. He opened it, and grabbed the obviously prepared bags for the ash and bones, and bundled them back in the trunk with the cloak.

"Good job sis. We got 'm."

She raised an eyebrow, but then raised her hand for a high-five, which he supplied. Then he offered her his arm again.

"Lets go to school and grab the basilisk."

"You want to grab the entire basilisk?"

He nodded. "Yes. Magical resistance doesn't affect folded space like that of space-enlarged trunks. It's perfectly ok to do it like this."

She took his arm.

"This may take a minute, Iris. I need to find the hole in the alert wards again."

After slightly more than a minute, Iris felt herself get stretched again, and then pulled through the tight tube. Suddenly, they were at the edge of Hogsmeade.

* * *

"Iris, plan for this one is simple. We take one of Filch's four tunnels into hogwarts. There's one exit close to here. We both wear our cloaks, which will hide us from even the wards of hogwarts. Even Dumbledore won't figure out we've been here. We go to the chamber, get the basilisk, get out, use the same tunnel, and we'll apparate home as soon as we clear the wards."

"Sounds good. But I don't have the cloak here."

"Then call it towards you."

She flushed. "Oops. That's going to take some getting used to."

Harry smiled. "It happens, sis. I once was imprisoned for two hours before I realized I could do the exact same thing with my wand. Felt pretty stupid about that to."

She giggled, then summoned the cloak towards her. Then she looked at Harry.

"You're still visible."

"Only to you. If you have sufficient practice, you can tell the cloak to not affect certain people. Also, I've got some… bonus possibilities. I don't need to physically wear it for it to work on me anymore. But if I lend it to someone else, I still can't use it of course. Could you give me the map? Will be easier that way, since you still need to wear your cloak."

She nodded, and handed it over. He led her to a rock that looked totally random, tapped it with his wand, and it rose a bit from the ground, giving access to a tunnel. They followed it for about half an hour, before the emerged in the castle. Harry checked the map, with her looking over his shoulder. They indeed weren't visible, which she'd never noticed before. The castle was mostly empty, though, and it was laughably easy to find Myrtle's bathroom and get there undetected. Harry opened the sink, and jumped down, casting charms as he went. When she followed him, she noticed they must have been scouring charms. When she landed, she also felt the effect of a cushioning charm, which also was a significant improvement from last time. She also wasn't filthy to her underwear, and she wouldn't have to wash her hair _hours on end _again.

And no, she was not above admitting she was still a bit angry about that one.

They walked to the chamber. A few waves of Harry's wand cleared the collapse, and before long they were in the chamber proper. Harry pointed out the door towards Salazar's study, which Iris hadn't spotted last time. In her defense, we had been a wee bit distracted between the basilisk and the young Voldemort. Harry took out a different shrunken trunk, and put it on the ground. He unshrunk it, then raised up an entire wardrobe from it. He opened its doors, and it indeed seemed large enough for the basilisk to pass through. Then he levitated the wardrobe , since the basilisk was probably indeed a bit too heavy to carry, and to magically resistant to levitate. He scooped up the beast with the wardrobe, until it was entirely inside. It had taken him two minutes, tops. Damn, but Potters were good when they had time to prepare.

"Harry? How about we grab some of those books you were talking about, so I can start on parselmagic?"

Harry shrugged. "Fine. Let's get one that goes over the basics. And perhaps the one for summoning."

He smirked at her, and pointed his wand towards the floor close to him.

$Big constrictor$

A big snake shot out of his wand, mostly unremarkable but clearly strong. Iris raised an eyebrow.

"Big constrictor? What kind of incantation is that?"

"It's part of how the snake summoning works with parselmagic. Don't worry - it still sounds like some awesome arcane incantation to everyone who doesn't speak it." $Disappear$ He gestured, and the snake faded from view. Then he led her towards the door he'd indicated previously.

"There are some spells with other types of incantations, though. But stay away from the magical snakes for now - they take a lot out of you to summon. If you'd try, say, a basilisk, the power demand could very well kill you. Parselmagic is a tad more.. Primal and dangerous than what you learn at hogwarts."

Salazar's quarters here were pretty small - or perhaps he only left it for special situations. It was basically a study, a small bedroom, and a library - but that last one was basically a small corridor with bookshelves on each side, and only about 5 meters deep, and far from filled. Harry picked out three, and gave them to her.

"These are good starting material. Let's look them over at home?"

Iris nodded. "Good plan."

They left the chamber. Arriving at the entrance, Harry used parseltongue to ask for stairs, which appeared.

"When going down, it's easier to slide. It otherwise takes forever."

They ascended, which took them a good quarter of an hour. Using the map, they passed through the castle completely undetected. Harry guided them to the same entrance they'd used before, and as soon as the tunnel left the wards, he apparated them both back to Potter Manor.

* * *

Harry gave her a quick explanation of parselmagic, and then set her to reading. It was quite weird at first to read the parcel script - it was all squiggles, lines and dots. But for some reason, when trying to read it a word at a time instead of a letter at the time, it all made sense. She took a small break with a lesson for Rose, teaching her the Impediment jinx. It had low power requirements, and as a first year, she could easily handle it. Then, the afternoon after their little trip around, Harry found her in the library, and put something in front of her. She took her eyes off the book, and saw the wand Harry'd made for her - the dementor bone still had the dark bluish sheen she'd seen on it before, and it was slightly longer than her holly and phoenix feather wand. She took it up, and gasped when she felt the raw power she had access to with this wans. She looked up at her brother.

"Now be careful with this one at first. Your old wand is probably better for the fine work. This wand is more… combat oriented. You'll find that your curses are significantly more powerful. Your shields will be sturdier. And if you try the fine work, you'll probably horribly overpower your spells. If you tried your old levitation charm… your feather would be flat against the roof, if you didn't break it by its rapid ascension."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Let's test it out?"

"Of course. Never doubted that you would want to. Keep in mind, since it's core is a basilisk eyestring, it will overpower parselmagic even more. Because of the soul magic affinity, it also seems to amplify the power of the killing curse, though you probably won't need or use that."

They trained some more, trading combat spells. Harry kept his assortment up to her own level, but didn't dial back his speed much. He was a far faster caster, and could put a lot more force behind his spells as well. As a result, Iris tired quite quickly, to which Harry merely smirked and answered that if she wanted to grow powerful, the only way was through exhaustion.

* * *

A few days before they'd head to the Quidditch World Cup, Hermione would get to Potter Manor, and stay with her best friend Iris until they'd go there together. That had already been decided before Harry had shown up.

And now he was restlessly pacing through the entrance hall. Because he was to meet a girl who was basically a clone of his best friend, and he had no clue how to deal with it. She might even have been his girlfriend? It'd been simple only because all their other friends had been dead. They'd definitely done a few things that normally required boyfriend/girlfriend status. But this was a different Hermione. Yes, he mostly knew her. He knew the kind of person she was. And Iris was here, who knew both of them. She smiled a fragile smile when he realized that Iris knew him a lot better than anyone knowing him for a week and a half had a right to. However, this Hermione didn't have a clue about who he was.

"Calm down, Harry." He looked up, and saw his mother enter the room. He had a mother… He sighed.

"I just… I don't know what's going to happen. How do I not alienate her?"

She embraced him, and he allowed himself to melt into her. Despite the fact that his brain knew she couldn't protect him from anything he couldn't protect himself from, part of him still felt safe in her arms.

He felt her move a bit, and felt the silent privacy charm jump into existence around them.

"Is this about what happened to her in your own world? About the two of you being involved?"

"Perhaps? I don't know. Partly I think. I don't know how romantic it was, we were just both the only one left the other trusted…"

"Sssh. It's gonna be fine. You're a really nice boy, and she'll like you just like her other self did. I think it's due to Iris always having had more confidence in herself than you used to have, but Hermione is also more confident than the way you showed her to me. Just be honest, don't press too close too fast, and don't try to continue something that she wasn't part of."

She released the hug, and held him by his shoulders to look him in the eyes, glistening of held up tears. "And I don't mean that I wouldn't want her as daughter-in-law, but never forget that you'll have to start from scratch with her. Deal?"

Harry nodded. "Yes mom."

She hugged him again.

"You've never had the time to properly mourn her death, have you? That's why it's so painful. You haven't told the Hermione you knew goodbye yet."

She kept whispering in his ear. Harry didn't say a word, but she could feel she had all his attention by how tight he held her.

"I'm very grateful to other Hermione for taking to good care of you. But in the here and now, there's another Hermione. See it as her second chance for happiness."

She ended the hug and the charm.

"Now go sit with your sister. I promise it's going to be fine."

He sad down next to Iris, and went through his occlumency exercises to keep calm. He did nearly all occlumency subconscious these days, so it'd been a while that he had to actually meditate. After a few more minutes, the floo flared up green, and out stepped a very well-known bookworm. She did indeed look a tad more confident than he remembered of almost-fifteen Hermione. His Hermione had gotten more confident throughout their fourth year, but the new one seemed ahead of schedule. Iris jumped towards her, and caught her in a hug.

"It's good to see you again, Mione."

"You to, Iris."

Iris release the girl, then led her to Harry.

"This is Harry. Consider him my twin brother."

Harry shook her hand, hoping his own hadn't gone sweaty.

"Pleased to meet you." Said Harry. "Iris told me a lot about you." Most of that was comparing her to the Hermione he'd grown up with, though.

She gave him a small smile. "Pleased to meet you. Iris told me a tiny bit about you, but, if you don't mind me asking… Most people don't just get fourteen year old brothers out of nowhere."

Iris was the one who answered.

"What we're telling everyone is that he was kidnapped when we were both small. We were all obliviated about it. Harry grew up with a hermit somewhere who taught him magic, but was a bit antisocial. However, the hermit died, he saw my name in the newspaper, and went to figure out if he was related to us Potters."

Hermione nodded. "So what really happened?"

Harry smiled. "See Iris, I told you she'd figure it out right away before you finished talking." He turned to Hermione. "How's your occlumency?"

Hermione frowned. "What's that?"

"It's a type of magic that allows you to better control your emotions and preserve your memory. It also allows you to shield your mind against Legilimency, which you could crudely call mind-reading."

Hermione blinked. Twice. "Mind reading exists?!" It was almost a shriek.

Iris replied. "Yes, but there aren't many people who can do it. However... We kind of don't want people to figure out how Harry really got with us. So we'll help you learn occlumency, and then we'll tell you. Is that ok?"

Hermione bit her lower lip, which Harry considered seriously cute. "You know the story and trust him, Iris?"

Iris nodded. "With my life. And yes, he really is a brother to me."

Hermione looked at Harry. "Good enough for me. It'll look forward to get to know you."

Harry smiled. "Trust me, Hermione, not as much as I do."

* * *

While contact started off a bit awkward, it got better after Iris and Hermione started doing their summer homework for defense together.

"Ugh. How about we just ask Harry for help with this for a bit?"

"Your brother better in defense than you?"

"Yes."

"But you're the best in our year!"

"I know, but he's still a bit better. I'll just get him, ok?" Iris stood up and left.

Iris came back half a minute later, Harry in tow.

"So what's the problem?"

"_Stupify_. I'm pretty sure I have the wand movement right, but Hermione can't figure it out."

Harry turned towards the girl. He had to still his nerves for a moment.

"Let me see."

Hermione twirled her wand, then jabbed forward at the end.

"Close, but wrong. You start left, then make a clockwise spiral for seven-fifth rounds, constantly towards the center by a quarter of your original distance from it. Then you point forward and two wand-widths. A point, not a jab."

Hermione blinked.

And made the movement perfectly.

"Like this?"

"That was perfect."

She tilted her head, and looked at Harry inquisitively.

"How do you know how I memorize my wand movements?"

Harry managed to suppress his flush and surprise, but didn't quite manage to reply with surety.

"I.. Iris told me?"

Internally, Harry began to sweat. Other Hermione had used this exact sentence once to try help someone in the DA, but it turned out that nobody else could use instructions worded this way. While Hermione was a fast learner of spells, she was a horrible teacher for everyone who didn't have a lot of experience with her way to describe spells. Harry and Ron had basically been the only ones to understand it.

But someone she never met being able to instantly use her own notation to explain her a spell? Heck no. He hoped she'd somewhat ignore it. He knew his own Hermione wouldn't have, but perhaps she was still young enough to let it slide.

Hermione blinked, then slowly looked at Iris. Iris had had plenty time to realize what was up, and nodded.

"I hope you don't mind me talking about you?"

Harry breathed out. His sister was totally amazing and the best person ever. Iris to the rescue.

Hermione shook her head.

"No, it's fine. I just… well, it works, and that's what matters. So pronunciation?"

Harry tried to shift a bit more to how he'd explain the spell to, well, everyone not named Hermione.

"No significant emphasis. Instead, try to throw it out your mouth as fast as possible. Since this is defense, casting speed is paramount. Intent should be hostile numbness."

Hermione scrunched up her nose. That was quite a normal reaction for her when he explained something to her in a way not hers, so that was a good sign for his cover. Harry stealthily took out his second spare wand - Dragon Heartstring in Oak. It wasn't even that good a fit, but it had the advantage that nearly everyone seemed to be able to get some use out of it. Not that Harry really knew why. Nobody _really _understood wands, not even wand-makers.

"Here, try casting it at me."

"We're not allowed to do magic!"

"This is a practice wand. It doesn't actually do anything, and therefore doesn't give you warning either. But it will show you if your cast was effective."

Hermione raised an eyebrow, but started casting. First she needed to speed up her pronounciation - she had the bad habit of speaking really slowly to pronounce her spells perfectly. Stupify was one of those spells where it mattered, but it would be a bad habit with all spells, especially if it got to war again. Other Hermione had been slow in learning, and that had been massively inconvenient.

Her wand movements were perfect, though. And since he could feel a bit of magic accumulating, he knew the intent was coming along.

"Again. Just a tad more focus."

Hermione tried for the fifth time, and a red bolt shot out of the wand, towards Harry. Harry caught it on the tip of his primary wand, and stopped it in mid-air. Then he brought it closer to his eyes, to investigate it.

"Looks fine. I think you know it."

Hermione's eyes grew a bit wider.

"How do you do that? Is it because this is a practice wand?"

Harry grinned. "Ah. Well, I've got a bit of a confession to make. That's not a practice wand. Actually, underage magic is detected by means of an enchantment, called the trace, on your own wand. It falls off when you become 17. That wand had dropped the trace that exact way. By someone not me."

The only reason he'd been able to finish talking was because Hermione was gaping with her mouth open.

"But that's illegal! You made me break the law!"

He raised his eyebrow. Time to bait the trap.

"That's not a traced wand, so they can't know you did. While you aren't allowed to possess a wand without a trace, it's not illegal to use one."

"It's about the spirit of the law, not the letter."

Harry smiled. "Would you like to know why that law exists?"

Hermione blinked. "What's that got to do with it?"

"You asked about the spirit of the law."

She sighed, apparently having an idea of what was coming. "Ok, fine. Tell me."

"Let's say that all muggleborn children are responsible enough to actively take measures to avoid breaking the statute of secrecy. While I would consider that to be accurate for you yourself, I highly doubt that's something you could blanketly say about all muggleborns at school, right?"

"Yes, but, what has muggleborns to do with it?"

"Getting there. Not all children have adequate control over their magic. That's why we're taught how to use it at Hogwarts."

She nodded, and Harry continued.

"So if, say, Iris here would make a mistake casting something, both her parents are qualified magic-users who can reverse the problem, or in the worst case contact the ministry to take care of it. However, if a muggleborn miscast a fire spell to light the hearth, for example, then there's a magical fire in a muggle location. Muggle firemen can't fight it - it needs magic. And nobody can contact the ministry. Can you see where I'm getting here?"

Hermione had a clear frown on her face. She didn't like it.

"Yeeesss…."

"The underage restriction basically only exists for muggleborns, for the very reason of safety, and the related reason of secrecy. However, since they weren't able to put that into law, the law technically applies to those raised in magical dwellings. However, they mostly just ignore them, after all, it could also be a parent using the traced wand."

Harry looked to Iris.

"However, it's probably smart to not increase the amount of traced magic use in this house. If auror dad spots a sudden increase in traced magic use, he might decide to ask awkward questions Iris here doesn't want to answer."

Iris looked a bit down at that, but nodded, and continued for him.

"That said, your second wand is untraced, so…."

Suddenly, a dangerous glint appeared in Hermione's eyes.

"Second wand?" She interrupted.

"Second wand." Harry confirmed. "Don't tell mom and dad, please. It's not exactly legal. Also not exactly illegal, but more of a grey area. Just like you having mine there. However, it's the only way to improve, and to be honest, Iris needs that, as you know. As Iris' brother, so do I. And as her friend, you need to be able to defend yourself as well."

Hermione turned to Iris.

"He knows about.. The reasons.."

Iris nodded. "He knows about the prophecy. In fact, it's best you assume he knows everything I know except for the contents of our girl talks."

Harry cleared his throat.

"And I'd like to keep it that way and never find out. However, I hoped you might be able to return the favor a bit with the help… I haven't studied any arithmancy or runes before, but I'm hoping to catch up with them. I haven't talked to any professors yet about it, but… in trade for me helping you with defense?" Harry knew Iris had taken those subjects, and he still regretted never having taken them himself in his old school career. Especially runes, as he could recall a few moments that Rune knowledge would have saved lives. But no, he had to be a lazy ass and pick divination for an easy O.

Hermione nodded. "Of course. And no need for a trade, as Iris' brother I'd help you anyway."

"I promise I'll work hard on it, of course. It's not about the grades, it's about the knowledge."

That earned him his first Hermione Smile of Approval. Even if it was a different Hermione, he knew how to entice her. High grades were good. But to desire knowledge even over grades…. that spoke to a much more primal urge of his bushy-haired friend.

* * *

The day before the Quidditch World Cup, Sirius arrived. With him were his wife and children. Their kids didn't really go for the questions. Instead, Mary went for her good friend Rose, who she'd start Hogwarts with, and John joining them. Iris and Hermione greeted the newcomers, and then went to Iris' room for what Harry assumed to be girl talk. Which left Harry alone with the adults, and Sirius was still a true Gryffindor who charged in straight to the point.

"So... Prongs, Lily. I'm pretty confident Iris didn't have a twin."

The elder Potters were speechless. This was blunt even for Sirius. Harry looked towards his new mother, and asked a question through legilimency.

"Do you trust Marlene?"

"With my life and that of my children. And she's been keeping my secrets since my first year."

Harry nodded.

"I am willing to explain, but it's a long story, and parts of it may be tough to understand. You have a few hours, Padfoot?"

Sirius nodded. "As long as John doesn't blow anything up, sure."

Harry turned to James. "Are you aware of the location of the family pensieve ? I haven't spotted it yet..."

James called a house-elf, and had it bring the pensieve, which Harry put on the table.

"I am going to use this to support my story. It'll be easier to understand if you can see parts of it. In short, I am from another world. You know the essentials of the multiple-worlds theory?"

Sirius already looked uncomfortable. "Let's… pretend...that I don't."

Harry started explaining the general idea, and then describing his old world. He showed bits and bobs, like parts of his first time in diagon alley, and the fight with the basilisk. Sirius was shocked to learn how he'd been in azkaban for so long in that world, and Harry had shown him the entire memory of what happened in the Shrieking Shack.

"Ok, I'm also going to show something that happened after my third year. The very quick and dirty version is, Voldemort returned at the end of my fourth year, and most inhabitants of magical britain died in the following war. I think that before the final battle I fought him in, only around ten percent was still alive. Even less after that battle, since it was a rather bloody affair."

He then showed them a last memory. The one of the attack on the Quidditch World Cup.

This had all of them silent.

"I want to be there." Harry announced. "Most Knight of Walpurgis that evaded azkaban were quite high up in the hierarchy. It gives me a proper excuse to thin their numbers."

Marlene was the one to respond.

"You mean to capture them, right?"

Harry shook his head. "They'd just bribe their way to freedom again. As far as I'm concerned, the war is already started. The only way to make sure an enemy doesn't return is to kill them. So when they all dress up like in the good old days... "

"But you're just a boy."

Harry looked up.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Black, but I'm twenty years old. And I could take all four of you in a fight, no trouble. Even if all of you went for the kill while I could only capture."

He saw the disbelief on her face. Sirius and James didn't seem to believe him either. Only Lily, but she knew more than the others anyway..

"Allright, lets go. Follow me to the duelling pit. All of you."

Marlene objected. "That's really not..."

"NOW." He sneered. "I fought a war for years. I will NOT allow you to doubt that I am capable, and I am serious about this."

He raised his index finger to Sirius to silence him, who'd already opened his mouth. "Not. A. Word."

Sirius did close his mouth, but he left a smirk behind. It seemed this Sirius was as incapable of resisting jokes regarding his name at least as much as the one he'd known in the other world.

* * *

Harry led them to a chamber in the basement.

"Discuss your strategy."

He conjured up a red light, and went to the other side of the room.

They discussed for a moment.

"Harry, we really think..."

Harry slashed down his wand. The red light went dimmer, and a voice spoke.

"Five."

Harry took his stance.

"Four"

The adults lined up, taking distance between them. At least they weren't stupid.

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

The red light went out, leaving sufficient ambient light, but not like a well-lit room. Harry slung an explosive curse towards the floor in front of his parents, followed up with an area banisher charm to bombard them with the shrapnel. Then he twitched his wand to the side, and it obediently spew forth a series of lights all in different colors. Four headed to Sirius, and three to Marlene. Sirius shielded the first, dodged the second, had his shield destroyed by the third, and was thrown into the wall by the fourth. Marlene had her shield up to late, behind pushed backwards, silenced, and her wand thrown from her hand. Harry noticed his parents had started their retaliation. He conjured a shield, while throwing a wandless stunner towards Sirius to put him out, followed by one for Marlene before she could get her wand back. Then he cancelled his shield, batted a few curses away or back towards them, and added in a few curses of himself. He felt for magic behind him, and countered his father's transfigurations with their exact counterspells. Then he doubled up on the assault, and overwhelmed his mother first, disarming and binding her, before doing the same to his dad. He collected them, then woke and freed them all.

"This is when I play fair. Now let's go a round without fair."

They reluctantly lined up again. This time, however, they didn't fool around, and took him seriously.

He threw up a mist, then cast four delayed, slowed, soulshifted stunners. He released them at once. Since they were shifted compared to his shield, they could pass through. All four of them collapsed at the same moment. It had taken about a second.

He woke them up again. "More demonstration needed?"

Sirius stood up slowly. "No, I don't think so."

Marlene hugged herself, causing Sirius to put an arm around her shoulder.

She spoke. "I just wish you wouldn't have to kill them."

Harry's face softened. "Don't we all."

"Why are you telling us all of this? It's clear you could do it anyway, even without us finding out."

"I could. And if you'd find out, I could obliviate you. But I don't want to work that way. I want the four of you behind me. I'm… sick and tired of doing this alone."

Marlene nodded sadly.

"I'm with you. I don't know how much you've heard about my family in your old world, but I lost everyone except Sirius to those bastards. My family name will die out."

Harry attempted a reassuring smile at her. "I'll see to it that their deaths were not in vain."


	4. Chapter 4 - Quidditch World Cup

**Chapter 4 - Quidditch World Cup**

**A/N: I'm changing Quidditch. 150 points for a snitch is stupid, so it's 55 now. This also prevents any silly ties. There's also 4 bludgers, so Beaters can't just each babysit a bludger to make the game boring that way. I'm introducing a bit of terminology during the match later in the chapter.**

* * *

They arrived early morning by portkey - the match would be the next day, but they wanted to be close to the stadium, and settle in for a bit. The Potters, the Blacks, and Hermione would share a tent. It was a rather basic wizarding tent - Sirius had bought it. James and Lily had one room, Sirius and Marlene another, then there was a bigger one for the four girls and a smaller one for Harry and John.

Sirius and James decided that as fathers, they would set it up Harry, Iris and Hermione meanwhile went to go have a look around the campsite. They started scouting their immediate surroundings, as well as figuring out where the amenities were. The Potter elves would provide their food, but the water station was close by enough that it was no hindrance to use it. Before they took water, they visited some of the stalls that were selling things related to the Quidditch world cup. This early in the morning, there weren't many in business yet, and most would focus on the next day to bring most business anyway - that was when the match itself took place.

They found themselves some omniculars, which had very nice zooming functions, as well as allowing the user to record sections and, a new functionality, somewhat change the angle from which you could watch the plays. While the girls also bought some Ireland paraphernalia, Harry skipped on these. Just like last time around, he thought Ireland had the better chance of victory, despite Krum definitely being better than Lynch.

When Harry spotted two silver haired girls, he was sort of surprised. He'd known they attended the world cup - Fleur had told him - but he hadn't spotted them last time. It also gave him the same familiar ache in his heart that he felt when he first met Hermione - Fleur had died several weeks before the final battle, merely because they'd already lost all their other healers and didn't have anyone left to save her. Gabrielle, a bit over three years younger and about Harry's age, had fought in the final battle, and he didn't even know if she'd survived. She'd been a bit of a pyromaniac, even for a Veela. She had been the only one matching his own skill with Fiendfyre on their side of the war.

They were drawing nearer, and he decided to give at least Iris a bit of a warning.

$Nest-mate. They are Fleur and Gabrielle Delacour. Fleur has three years on us, while Gabrille is half a year younger. They're Veela from France.$

$Friends of yours?$

$They were trusted friends and powerful allies. But due to being Veela they were quite aloof at first, almost arrogant - all Veela have bad experiences with others when their allure runs wild during puberty. But once they are friends, they are friends forever.$

Getting close, he turned to them, meeting their rather cold gazes. So far, he hadn't really done anything different from most guys, who'd typically proceed to drool at this point. So he'd have to show them a bit of difference...

He spoke in fluent French:

"Good morning, ladies. I hope you're supporting Ireland just like us?"

He'd shocked them into at least half a second of silence. Fleur did recover first, slightly tilting her head in curiosity.

"Of course. It's going to be a Chasers' game."

"See, Quidditch can unite even the French and the Brits."

"Speaking of that, how are you aware that we are French?"

"Oh, how rude of me. I forgot to introduce us. This is my twin sister, Heiress Iris of House Potter. And Miss Hermione Granger, her best friend. I'm Harry. Pleased to meet you."

He noticed Gabrielle starting, and attempting to get her sister's attention.

"My sister, Miss Gabrielle of House Delacour. I'm the Heiress, Fleur. Weren't you going to say how you know we're French?"

Harry smiled back at her. "Well, both of you are obviously Veela. Judging by your hair color, you have to be related to the Silver court, which is in France. Of course, it could have been that your mother had emigrated, but that's not likely."

"You seem awfully informed about Veela culture, mister Potter." Fleur replied "How come?"

Harry shrugged. "Picked some things up here and there. It helps to not stand around drooling."

"Yes, I noticed. Did you train self-control?"

"Sort of. I was already mostly resistant, but between a few Imperius curses and assistance of a Veela friend of mine, I'm quite confident I can handle your allure at full blast."

"A pleasant surprise."

At this moment Iris butted in.

"Ok, l've waited long enough. You ARE aware I don't speak French, right?"

At the same moment, Gabrielle grabbed her sister's attention, and Harry didn't exactly hear what she said, so he excused himself to Fleur, and asked Iris.

$So what's up nest-mate?$

Iris tilted her head in exasperation.

$I don't like Speaking in public. But can we switch to English?$

$Gabrielle doesn't speak English yet.$

He turned back to the girls, who were watching him in surprise. He estimated that if they'd been a little less dignified, their mouths'd be hanging open.

He attempted to smile innocently, and put his question in French again.

"Is something the matter?"

Gabrielle eyed between them, but Fleur recovered first.

"You're both Parselmouths?"

"Indeed. It is a inheritable Trait, after all."

Gabrielle interrupted them excitedly. "That's totally awesome!"

Harry grinned. "I'm glad you think so."

"Does Ir- miss Potter speak French?"

"I'm afraid not, miss Delacour. Why so? You want me to translate something?"

"It's just so amazing I finally get to meet her! I want to be a heroine like her!"

Harry's smile slightly cracked. It was true the Gabrielle he'd known before had had a fan girl crush on him, but by the time they'd really started interacting, Fleur'd already gotten her over most of it. Obviously, it wasn't progressed that far here yet.

"Gabrielle?" He spoke in a more serious tone, demanding her full attention. He'd often used it when giving orders before a battle.

"Iris doesn't like her fame. She doesn't remember what happened, and the only thing it means for her is to lose her grandparents." He lowered his voice some more. "And even then, it's very likely that she survived because of something our grandmother Dorea Potter did. I'll translate for you if you want, but if you try ask about that night, I will not. Understood?"

Gabrielle had gotten a bit more quiet, and looked down, drawing in the sand with a single shoe. Then she looked up, clearly reluctant, and nodded.

"Ok, fine."

Harry turned to Iris, switching to English.

"Iris, may I introduce Miss Gabrielle of House Delacour."

Then he turned to Gabrielle.

"Miss Delacour, may I introduce Heiress Iris of House Potter."

They shook hands, and exchanged a "pleased to meet you" in their respective languages.

Harry looked towards Fleur, and lowered his voice while the two girls were introducing.

"Miss Delacour? Could I request you a small favor?"

"That entirely depends on the favor in question, Mister Potter."

"Could you temper her hero worship a bit? It's not that my sister isn't amazing, but it makes her really uncomfortable. If your sister wants to befriend mine… that's how you could help her."

Fleur eyed him carefully. "Consider it done, as long as it's not at too inconvenient a moment."

"You have my gratitude."

Fleur smiled at him. "You're welcome. Call me Fleur."

"Then call me Harry."

Fleur now switched to heavily accented English, and Harry introduced her to Iris and Hermione as well - the latter of which spoke a bit of French but hadn't been able to keep up with Harry's and Fleur's speed. They spend a bit more time around the stalls together, before the Delacours had to get back - they'd promised a tight time frame to their father, whom they considered overprotective, but which Harry silently considered warranted.

* * *

The next day, early morning, the Weasley's arrived at their camping spot - adjacent to the Potters'. They'd warned Ron about Harry's existence by owl, but also requested him to keep the twins outside the loop. After all, a good prank was the best way to introduce yourself to them. The evening before, Harry spoke to Iris for a moment.

"I'm afraid we can't let Ron know that I came from another world."

"Why not. Yours wasn't trustworthy?" Iris looked offended at the mere thought.

"I could fully trust his intentions. However, the Ron I knew was never able to learn any measure of Occlumency. Therefore, I couldn't rely on him to keep any secrets. He even managed to make his peace with not knowing about all operations."

Iris sighed. "Ok. But can we please not lie to him?"

Harry smiled softly. "I won't tell a single lie to him. I owe that to my Ron."

Because only he knew about Harry's existence, Ron came over first thing in the morning after the Weasleys arrived.

"So you're Harry Potter?"

"That's me. So you're Ron Weasley?"

"So why haven't I heard of you before?"

"Because nobody else had. Iris didn't know either. I wasn't raised by my parents. James and Lily didn't even know I was alive during that time. Neither me nor my caretakers were familiar with the greater wizarding world, even though I learned a lot of magic. After my caretakers died, I managed to find my way to my family. It turns out I was born the same day as Iris, but she's still the Heiress, as she came into this world first of course."

Ron frowned. Then he looked at Iris and Hermione for confirmation.

"All true." Iris said. And it was. Just not the truth Ron though he heard. Did she have the same Slytherin potential as her brother showed?

Hermione was still deep in thought analyzing what Harry said, exactly like she expected. Iris' best friend was probably spending a lot of time trying to figure her brother out - they'd better teach her Occlumency and tell her fast.

"I'm sorry, but..." Ron paused. "It just feels odd how fast they accepted you."

Harry nodded. "I let mom in my mind with legilimency. She's seen my entire life up until this point. And well…let's say that Iris and I have plenty in common that nobody would guess."

He raised his hand, and lifted the fringe, showing his scar. Like Iris', it was a thin white line. At the exact same place and shape. Ron's eyes grew in surprise.

"Fair enough. So what were you planning with the twins?"

Harry grinned. "You ever wanted to get them with a prank they can't possibly match?"

* * *

A pair of completely unaware, mostly innocent Weasley twins was just crashing down on their beds after their father had finally given up on setting the tent up the muggle way, and just cast the proper spell.

"How long was that, brother mine?"

"Must have been at least three hours."

"And I believe ickle Ronniekins chickened out on us."

"To right, my brother. We owe him some attention for that."

They spend a few moments bouncing ideas, until they were interrupted by the targeted Weasley entering the tent.

"Ehm, Fred, George?"

He looked pretty nervous. With good cause, if he'd listened in.

"What is it?" Twin A answered.

"I, ehm. There's a-." He collected himself. "The two of you are really good with potions, right?"

Twin B raised an eyebrow. "Why are you asking? You really don't want us to help with your essays..."

"...not when you have access to Hermione." Twin A finished.

"It's not that. It's about Iris." He said before Twin B could add something, and nervously licked his lips. "There's been a bit of a potions accident, absolutely nobody knows or can know, and we really need help badly."

Now _that_ was interesting. "What happened?"

"I.. you wouldn't believe me anyway. Can you come with me to the Potter-Black tent?"

The twins exchanged a glance, shrugged, and got up.

They entered the Potter tent, and Ron brought them to what they assumed to be their girl's shared room. They noticed what looked like Iris, but the black hair looked to be much shorter.

Ron spoke "Iris?"

The person turned around. It was Iris, but it wasn't… her. Or at least, it wasn't _a_ her.

"Hey guys." Iris-the-boy said. "I think the problem was with polyjuice and a bit of aging potion, but after it wore off… I didn't change completely back." He looked a bit uncertain. "Please tell me you have an idea how to fix this?" His voice cracked a bit, and he looked really uncertain.

The twins gaped for a few moments.

Then the first one started.

"Well, first thing I can think off probably won't work. We could try to hide it while we work on a fix? Basically like glamours."

"We could try the reverse process, but we would have to figure out if the polyjuice would need alteration, and a part of who you'd need… save some of your old hairs or nail clippings, just in case."

"Meanwhile, polyjuice for small bits of time, cause otherwise you'll trip the stairs to the girl dormitories. Glamour for the rest. Polyjuice is to hard to make for extended periods of time."

Then they heard a loud giggle, and saw Iris-the-boy pout in a rather fake manner, then wave his wand before his expression morphed into a grin. They saw an Invisibility Cloak slide of a very much female Iris.

"Gotcha!"

They gaped at her. Then they looked at Harry. Then at Iris again.

Then they repeated four more times, just because they could appreciate a good prank, which is when Harry stopped them.

"Gred, Forge, nice to meet you. I'm Harry."

The left twin blinked.

"Nice to meet you, Harry. I'm Fred."

"And I'm George. I see you've already heard of us."

They both extended a hand, the ones closest to the other twin. It was a rather standard way for them to confuse others, but Harry didn't miss a beat and shook their hands at the same time.

"The two of you aren't easy to miss. But now we got a pair of Potter twins as well." He grinned. "And since we're Prongs' own spawn..."

"If you don't mind us asking..."

"Where DO you come from?"

Harry waved the question away. "Long story short, got raised somewhere else and finally found my family. I'm sure Ron will be delighted to tell you."

* * *

Late that afternoon, they all went to the stadium in one big group. Ginny had met Harry shortly after the twins, and luckily didn't suffer from silly crushes. She did have a small amount of I-wanna-be-like-Iris, but it felt far less unhealthy than what his own Ginny had had at her current age. She'd grown out of that, though. Thank Merlin and Morgana.

It turned out that in this world, it'd been the Potter family Bagman had given the top box tickets to, so it seemed Harry was doomed to share it with Fudge and the Malfoys again. According to Iris, little Malfoy was a bit more bearable - James Potter had as much influence in the ministry as big Malfoy, and Lily was very active for charities, and did spell research on the side. This basically meant that little Malfoy saved his temper tantrums to moments where Iris had either no witnesses, or to her friends while Iris wasn't there. He'd also never threatened her with his father - apparently he knew that James had been the auror to arrest his father.

The blonde still sneered at them, though silent about it. They weren't surprised by Harry's existence - apparently news had started to leak out after James had enrolled him in Hogwarts. Well, they hadn't exactly been trying to keep it secret.

Surprisingly, Narcissa and Lily got somewhat along. They'd apparently worked together on a charity funding a new wing of St. Mungo's. They also knew that their progeny didn't share their companionship, so they sat next to each other on the second row, while their respective Lords sat on either side of Minister Fudge on the front row. While they didn't get along as well as their wives, they were perfectly capable of pretending not to hate each other.

After all of them had settled down, it turned out the Bones' had the last few seats. Amelia, Director of the DMLE, with her niece, Susan. Amelia was a brunette, but was starting to go grey quite heavily. Either she aged fast, or being DMLE Director was a stressful job. She was only about 60, after all. Her grandniece, Susan, was of course Harry's age - same as the world he'd come from. She had coppery-red hair, quite broad shoulders for a girl, but was definitely… shaped very feminine for the rest. Both had apparently also already heard of Harry, and as such, introduced themselves without showing surprise. It turned out the other Potters had their habitual seating not yet including Harry, so he sat on the side - ending up next to Susan, who had Amelia on her other side. Harry did notice that Susan slightly blushed when he kissed her hand, but didn't comment on it.

He didn't have time to start a conservation with her, as Bagman activated his sonorous.

"Welcome, everyone, to the 424th annual Quidditch World Cup final!"

The stadium responded to him with a collective cheer.

"It's been a good bracket this year. We've seen amazing play all around the World Cup, and I have complete faith that this Final will be remembered for a long time. But now, the mascots of Bulgaria!"

A group of Veela entered the pitch, allure on full blast. Harry could feel it tug on his mind, but shoved it aside with occlumency. He looked around. The women, of course, weren't affected. James Potter wasn't entirely resisting, but he did enough to not stand up. Sirius was slightly less in control, standing up until his wife kicked his shins, bringing his mind back to earth and made him sit down again. His son John, of course, hadn't touched puberty yet and as such was completely unaffected.

Looking to his other side, he spotted the Bones' ladies also amusedly looking towards the male antics. Susan was the first to make a remark.

"You seem remarkable unaffected, mister Potter."

"Thank you, miss Bones." Harry smiled. "I wonder how resistant, though. After all, I still think they're all smoking hot, even if I don't think acting like a moron will somehow bring me to their attention positively."

Amelia cut in. "That doesn't say much, Potter. There's a number of objective advantages Veela have which tend to make them highly attractive."

Susan pouted slightly. "Unfair, always having that perfect skin of theirs."

Harry intervened. "Well, there's such a thing as to perfect. Most of them don't go that far, but in some cases they start to look a bit like..." he searched for a word that wasn't 'plastic' - he needed these two pureblood witches to understand. "... a bit like a pretty golem. Pretty, yes, but artificial. Even just a few freckles or something make a girl much more pretty and approachable."

He did notice a small smile on Susan's face, who did sport a few freckles, but the Veela had apparently done their bit, and settled down their side of the field. Bagman took the word again, after the allure was dropped which had affected him. He hurriedly put his shirt back on to the relief of all women present, and resumed his announcements.

"And now, the Irish mascots!"

A comet of shining green shot into the stadium. After crossing the pitch, it divided into two, and flew over the stands, dropping wat looked like gold. Some of it ended up in the top-box, but most went to the middle ranks of the stadium.

Harry picked one up, and looked at it closely.

"Hey, leprechaun gold. I've never seen it up close before."

Amelia was the one that responded. "Every year again we get a few who try to pay with that stuff. You can spot it with a simple Finite."

Harry bit the coin. "So what is it? Hard, glamoured air? It definitely doesn't give a metallic taste."

She shrugged. "Don't know, don't really care."

Harry pouted at her. "No time for a bit of idle curiosity, Director?"

Amelia gave a sound that somehow managed to be both a sigh and a chuckle. "I've got far to much things that are more dangerous that I have to be curious about. And when I'm free like right now..."

"Fair enough." Harry breathed on the coin. Despite being cold to the touch, it didn't condense. Perhaps not cold enough? Or it wasn't relevant. Then he tossed it aside, aiming for Sirius' head while the man was looking the other way. The first thing that happened was that Sirius tossed a coin at James' head. They exchanged a few words, then looked Harry's way, before he had to duck when several coins were thrown at his somewhat guilty grin.

"Prat".

Harry looked the other way, where Susan was rubbing her shoulder. "They didn't throw _that _hard."

She raised her nose in the air, but couldn't prevent an amused smile. "Next time, sit still and take the retaliation like a man, instead of endangering a woman."

However, Harry couldn't respond before Bagman started his commentary again, and both of them turned their attention towards the pitch.

* * *

"Everyone please welcome the team of Bulgaria." Bagman's voice echoed around the stadium. "Dimitrov, Captain Ivanova, Levski, Vulchanov, Volkov, Zograf, and Krum!" Seven streaks of scarlet entered the pitch, as the Bulgarian players lapped the pitch in formation - their Chasers, Dimitrov, Ivanova and Levski - in a wide triangle, their Beaters on equal height behind them and slightly centered compared to the outer chasers, Krum above them in the middle, and Keeper Zograf mirroring him below the others. And just like last time, all of them seemed to be on Firebolts. Unlike last time, he could actually make out how young Krum still was, instead of everyone looking adult to him like they'd did when he was fourteen in mind instead of only in body.

"And please welcome, the Irish team! Mullet, Troy, Moran, Connolly, Quigley, Captain Ryan, and Lynch!"

As they flew their own lap around the pitch, Harry could just make out the nervous look on Seeker Lynch's face. He knew he was up against the best, and he hadn't been playing very well this tournament - it'd been the Irish chasers who'd ruled the skies and advanced them to the finals.

"And our referee, Hassan Mostafa."

The referee wore an eye-watering golden robe that Dumbledore would have been proud of, and had an impressive black mustache on his face, while his bald head reflected the stadium lights. He walked to the center of the pitch, and the players formed up around him. He opened the chest with the balls - the snitch leaving sight immediately, all four bludgers going high and two to each half to await the game start. The referee took the quaffle, and started the match by throwing it high in the air.

The game was just as fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping and amazing as it was last time Harry watched it. Much true to his memory, the Irish Chasers started off strong. He didn't remember enough to tell if it went the exact same, but the difference wasn't big so far. Troy scored twice and Moran once before Ivanova managed to sneak one in for the Bulgarians. A goal from Mullet and Troy again, and tensions were rising.

A snitch would only get a team fifty-five points. With ten points for each quaffle scored, this made ties impossible, but Ireland was rapidly approaching that point where it wouldn't matter anymore who caught the snitch.

The Bulgarian Levski snuck in a goal, and then suddenly Harry noticed Krum undertake a dive at full speed, Lynch behind him. Harry scanned the route, but saw nothing… just like last time around.

"Feint." he whispered.

And indeed - Krum pulled up close enough to the ground that he had to pull up his knees besides his broom to avoid digging into the grass, and Lynch got the front end of his broom into the pitch, catapulting him off. While two medi-wizards hurried towards him to check up on Lynch, Krum spend his time looking for the snitch unmolested except from a revenge bludger he easily dodged. What looked like a somewhat rough _Enervate _later, Lynch got on his broom and back into the air. The Irish managed to get a 60 point lead, but due to a nice synchronization involving a Chaser and two simultaneous bludgers at the Irish Keeper, Bulgaria turned it back into a Seeker's Game, the name of the game phase where a snitch catch would decide the winner.

"Harry, how did you know that was a feint?" Susan asked softly, not taking her eyes of the plays.

"I didn't see the snitch."

He could almost hear the frown in her voice. "Well, ok, but they are professional Seekers. We're not."

"I'm not?" Harry grinned, and Susan gave him a short glare. Harry amended "I'm not bad at Seeker. The special thing about a Wronski Feint is that you try and make it look like you're hiding the snitch behind your body from the other Seeker, the same way you'd try to hide it if you have the opportunity. The hard part is pulling off that element of deception. So Lynch thought the snitch was behind Krum from his point of view, while we saw it from the side, giving us an angle to spot the snitch if it had been there."

"Huh." Susan muttered. "Interesting." She glanced at him sideways. "But I guess I should have expected something like that from the son of Lord Potter and the brother of Iris."

Harry remembered a bit of quidditch practice he'd done with Iris, who was an amazing Chaser just like dad. While he was easily her level at catching, his throws were… quite a bit worse. He was glad he didn't about the fact that a girl was better at aiming than he was.

They watched Ireland secure a Chasers Lead - a 60 point or higher advantage.

Harry smiled at Susan. "Well, we like what we like, right? You play in the Puff team?"

"Nah, not good enough at throwing for Chaser, not reckless enough for Seeker, and after Auntie taught me a bit of duelling I dodge far to much for Keeper or Beater. But I love to watch."

The Irish increased their lead more, despite Krum taking more and more time to harass them out of formation, but a Seeker couldn't do that much compared to other Chasers - they could kick the quaffle but not hold it.

"Irish have won, Susan. Five Galleons say that Krum still catches the snitch?"

"Sorry, but I know to much about quidditch to think that Lynch has a chance even if Krum's occupied with the chasers."

"Aw, you're to smart for my own good."

"Family defect. Sorry."

That had Harry double up in laughter, then look at her. She at least had the decency for a faint blush along with her grin.

"I'm remembering and stealing that one."

"Good boy. Now watch the match instead the innocent girl you're seated next to. If you can resist the Veela..."

"Yes Ma'am."

A silence fell, and some ten minutes later, Krum indeed snatched the snitch from right under Lynch's nose, ending the game with 115 against 180, handing victory to Ireland. At this point, it was more about salvaging their honor.

* * *

They slowly exited the stadium. The Malfoys left first, which drew Harry's extra alert attention, but he saw nothing suspicious. They all grouped down the stairs easily, which made Harry wonder why they didn't just have short-distance portals teleporting them down, like the portal to platform 9¾ which teleported them several hundred metres horizontally. He said goodbye to the Bones', and everyone retreated to their tents in peace.

Harry did put down a few wards in case, and went to bed. He was unable to sleep, until sadly proven right.

The Knights of Walpurgis had chosen this night to remember old times.


	5. Chapter 5 - Knights in the Night

**Chapter 5 - Knights by Night**

* * *

James rushed into the room shared by the two boys, but Harry was already up. James' new son helped the other boy dress by switching his pyjamas for his normal clothes. James completely ignored the Underage Sorcery breach, and made sure they were getting away as fast as possible. The boys got out into the entrance room of the tent, where Sirius and James were checking over their combat equipment. Harry approached his father.

"Dad, I'm going there to see if I can end this riot anytime fast. I'll send my Cloak to Rose in a bit."

"No you don't, I want you here to..."

Harry interrupted his father by fading away into thin air.

James sighed.

"Brat."

Sirius put a hand on James' shoulder.

"He'll be fine. He can handle himself. Lets just focus on protecting our children."

The girls entered the room. Iris spied around.

"Where's Harry?"

"He's, uhm, scouting."

Iris slightly tilted her head, as if to say 'Really?' "I could've gone with him and helped him."

"Well, he apparently didn't feel like sticking around, and while I can't claim to be much happier about that than you are, my reasons are slightly different. Young lady, whatever happens, I expect **you** to keep an eye on your sister. Hold her hand and don't let go."

It said something about Rose that she didn't object.

"Iris? Other hand. You'll want your wand arm free." He looked over Iris and Hermione. "If you feel threatened, stun them. If anybody not an auror aims at you, cast. I'd much rather explain to the aurors why you stunned a civilian than sit beside you in Saint Mungo's. And stick _together_."

He looked around, surveying everyone.

"Ok everyone, lets go. We'll head to the forest - it's the closest place outside the wards. IF you get seperated, Merlin forbid, do NOT leave the wards. There we'll try and apparate all of you out. Hermione, you're coming with us to our manor. Three of you, over here. I'm going to put a tracking charm on your clothes."

He cast his spells on his daughter and Hermione, noticing Sirius doing the same to his own children.

"Ok, outside, let me and Sirius go first. Stick close behind us while we move. Your mothers will cover your backs. If we get into a fight, get down on the ground as fast as you can, then do whatever your mothers tell you to."

And with that, he led them outside into the chaos.

* * *

Harry sneaked thought the tents. So far it wasn't war here yet - mostly darkness, confusions, and people running around. He was not _invisible_. The Cloak was superior after all. And when augmented by the other two Hallows… no, he wasn't merely invisible. He was _hidden_. If there was a way to detect him, he wasn't aware of it. He'd tested anything he could think of.

And given that he had access to the knowledge of the dead, that said a lot.

He spotted them into the distance. A group of people, wearing black robes, and white masks. Some of the masks would have slightly different shades and designs, and he knew the robes would bear lines reminiscent of armor, even they weren't really armored. There were hardly any people around here - which was good because he wouldn't have to watch out for others coming the crossfire, but it also annoyed him - if only those inhabitants of the now abandoned tents between him and the Knights would have stood and all shot a single stunner at the same time, no shield on earth could have kept the Knights awake. But alas, the wizarding world here was as cowardly as his own had been before he'd given them a collective kick between the legs.

He focused on the battle to come. He looked close, and noted that unlike the world he came from, they didn't have any hostages like they'd had the muggles. Or they hadn't picked them up yet - it was still earlier in the evening. Regardless, that made it much easier for Harry. He lobbed an electrified orb into the sky, shrouding it in shadow to hide it from view. Then he aimed his wand for the figure in front of the group of Knights. He'd always taken a sort of satisfaction from teaching the Knights that whoever was stupid enough to lead a group would die first. He liked to encourage their cowardice.

_Dominus_

A line connected him to the figure in front, but it felt like a closer match than what Harry had anticipated. The person exploded, changing into a loose collection of very small, fast-moving parts. They wouldn't physically injure the others, being to soft. The entire group was stunned by surprise, though. Apparently they hadn't counted on someone fighting back.

'Hide Rose' Harry thought to his Cloak, and he felt it disappear to obey his command. No matter how hidden, he knew that there was little benefit once you revealed yourself in combat, unless you wanted to flee it.

He took advantage of their surprise.

_Lacero_

He could feel the sharp ill-intent as metal on his tongue as he spoke the word. A red horizontal line sprung from his wand as he swung it horizontally. Only one of those endangered by it conjured a shield, but apparently didn't know the Ribbon Slicer, or didn't know the specific counter. The difference was irrelevant.

The spell impacted on three of the Knights, slicing through their robes and flesh as if it made no difference. He threw a Confringo after it, then lifted the shroud from his Orb.

The Knights finally sprung into action, and shielded the Confringo, but the the shields aimed at the Lighting Orb didn't function well, and the casters were thrown down on the ground when the lightning fed back through their shields. He threw two piercing curses at two skulls, and prepared to defend against the rainbow of spells heading his way. He went out of the way of the two Cruciatus curses - at least they were using effective combat spells - and cast his shield.

_Aegis Reflecta_

He felt as if warm honey covered his tongue, and a silvery dome sprang into existence around him, and suddenly he felt tired. The Crucios passed through the shield and crashed into the floor harmlessly. The others seemed absorbed, but ejected again - from each other's impact locations. It was designed this way to make it more difficult for them to deflect or shield against the spells - your own magic was always easier to shield. But it was not what he wanted them to do. Perhaps he needed to make his intention a bit more clear?

He aimed, and spoke again.

_Avada Kedavra_

He felt as if the sweet rotting stench of death rolled over his tongue. This spell always made him want to wash his mouth. A bright green light sprang from his Elder Wand and struck a Knight, dropping him like a puppet whose strings had been cut. This did give him the desired response, and he noticed a flurry of green lights flying towards him - and he could sense all of them were Killing Curses. Time to really terrify them. Harry shifted his magic.

_Protego_

The lights splattered against his shield, and he barely felt their impact. Once you got around the bit where they were soul-shifted and therefore couldn't interact with normal magic, the Killing Curse was actually quite a low-powered spell. It was a surgical tool that ejected a soul from a body, nothing more.

Harry dropped the shield just before the last green jet of light, and batted it back to sender, following it up with another explosive and piercing curse. After the killing curse struck, though, the Knights' emergency portkeys activated, and they fled the battlefield.

Harry let the Elder Wand disappear, and drew another one. He quite liked this one - aside from his Elder Wand, it was also the best match to him. It had a Thestral Hair core in Blackthorn wood. He'd filled it's backlog with a few shields and lower-level stuff more appropriate to his age, none of them deadly.

He'd been weaker than he thought. His first conclusion was that his strength followed his age and decreased to his old strength at 14. He checked his tracking charms, and started towards them in the forest, wand in hand.

Before he could get even two meters away, he heard the cracks typical of careless apparition. He froze, and cast a shield around him. They were probably aurors, but he wasn't going to gamble on it.

It turned out to be Aurors. A group of people wearing dark red robes appeared. He tried to look nervous, and held his shield up.

"Aurors, drop your wands!"

Harry snorted. That was stupid. If it were hostiles, they wouldn't comply. If they were friendlies and listened, they'd be sitting ducks for any hostiles still around. So instead, he kept his shield up. It would be sufficiently opaque that he could claim to not have spotted they were Aurors right away. And wouldn't get into any trouble for underage sorcery if it were strictly defensive - or at least, no trouble any Wizengamot Lord, like for example Lord James Potter, could get him out of without spending any political capital. Of course, all this meant was that he didn't have to run and shake them from his tail.

"Who's there?" He asked, remaining strictly defensive.

"Lower your shield!"

Whoever it was, it was a moron.

"I don't know who you are. I'm not dropping my shield for Knights!"

"I am Rufus Scrimgeour, Head Auror. Drop your shield now!"

Ah, Scrimgeour. Well, that explained _that_. The biggest difference between him and Percy had been that Percy had _eventually_ underwent cranial-rectal extraction and realized that criminals didn't follow the law. Scrimgeour had never figured that one out.

Harry depowered his shield slightly so that it would be more transparent.

"Dad said never to lower a shield while there's a wand pointed at me by someone I don't both know and trust. I'm Harry Potter. I'll lower my shield when your three friends lower their wands." Well, his dad had said it at some point. Maybe? Probably. James Potter was smart, after all.

"Lower your wands, a schoolkid is no threat to us."

The three aurors lowered their wands, most of the group already poking around and casting detection spells. Harry lowered his shield, and pointed his wand to the ground, but ready to bring it up again.

"Put away your wand please, mister Potter."

"Perhaps they'll come back. I'll hold it right here in case I need a shield, thank you very much. But I promise I won't get in your way." Now if only he could be certain of the reverse, but then, Harry thought it pretty unlikely any Knight would return here.

"I'd like to go and find my family. They'll be worried." No reason to inform Scrimgeour that he could do a messenger Patronus.

"First a few questions. You were here after all."

Harry tilted his head a bit. "I saw the Knights portkey out. But you're going to question a minor without his parents present or even aware?"

He noticed Scrimgeour rub his forehead in the palm of his hand for a moment. He could admit it was probably a rather bad day for the man, but if he was acting like this much of a prick, Harry wouldn't be cooperating more than he needed to.

"Auror Shacklebolt, would you please send a messenger Patronus to Lord Potter? His son is a witness, I'd like very much to ask aforementioned son a few questions, and I require his presence for that. Urgently."

Harry noticed Kingsley Shacklebolt send the Patronus. He'd never really gotten to know the man in the previous world - by his seventh year, all aurors that weren't corrupt were dead, except for Tonks. That girl had been incredible. Bad way to go though.

Harry located an intact chair from an abandoned tent, and sat down on it awaiting either his father's response, or refusal. He'd already felt his tracking charms jump, and he knew his family was safe at Potter Manor. Or at least, very close to the chair he'd attached another tracking charm to before leaving. He didn't know well enough where Potter Manor was to tell without a beacon like that.

* * *

When his father arrived at the scene, Harry was looking totally comfortable on what had to be the only surviving chair in the wide surrounding. Rufus Scrimgeour was pacing, and apparently not at all comfortable with the fact that a teenager somehow felt more relaxed in this situation than the Head Auror.

Then again, the teenager wouldn't have to do the paperwork, which Harry guessed was a rather significant difference.

"Rufus, you said you had Harry here and wanted him to ask some questions?"

"Ah, James. Finally. Yes. It seems like the riot ended right here. There seems to be a single survivor from the rioters aside from the ones that fled. He of course claims Imperius. He did claim that Heir Potter here attacked them with lethal force, including unforgivables, though."

"Head Auror." Harry interrupted. "Would you really trust the story of a Knight that - forgive me from laughing - a teenager didn't only cast unforgivables but also defeated an entire group of Knights by himself?"

"While I admit that that does sound ridiculous, it remains that evidence shows the spells came from your general direction."

"Well, I'm afraid I didn't really see much. Of course, that might have been because there were killing curses flying around, so I considered it prudent to hide behind anything available." Harry gestured towards a random destroyed wizard tent. As with any expanded space collapsing, it had violently puked out all furniture inside, which made for plenty cover for a teenager.

Harry continued. "So when the spells stopped flying, I decided to resume my travel towards the rendezvous point that I agreed upon with my parents, over in the forest. Of course, that's when I heard your apparition, so I cast a shield charm because I didn't know who it was. I also cast a few of those earlier while hiding behind the rubble in case of stray spells."

All true as well. He didn't like lying. Yes, it was ridiculous that a teenager could cast unforgivables and defeat a group of Knights. Killing Curses had been flying around. He'd even hidden from them - Harry was of the opinion that his shifted Protego counted. Yes, he'd cast a few spells before his shield. And with the aiming the probably drunk Knights had demonstrated, he had no trouble at all calling most their spells "stray spells".

Scrimgeour sighed. Harry could spot that he didn't buy story completely, to the man's credit. However, it wasn't like there was any evidence incriminating Harry.

"May I see your wand, mister Potter?"

Scrimgeour looked at Lord Potter for permission, and received a nod after Harry'd signaled it was ok.

Harry held his Blackthorn wand out towards Scrimgeour.

_Priori Incantatem_

The wand showed a few shields, and then went to a levitation spell older than a week, and Scrimgeour cancelled it.

"Fine. You may return with your father. We'll contact you if we have more questions, unless you can volunteer some identities?"

"I was to far away. Though might I suggest pouring your survivor full of veritaserum?"

"Thank you mister Potter, but I am aware of how to do my job."

"With Fudge, you'll see it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Good luck, Head Auror. I know I am looking forward to a warm bed by now."

James also said goodbye to the aurors, and they walked away together.

"Son, was it really necessary to antagonize him so?"

"He was annoying. And you should never ask anybody to drop their shield in a combat situation when you arrive. It's stupid. Criminals won't listen anyway, and civilians might get hurt if they're stupid enough to obey while it's still dangerous."

* * *

The next day, James escorted Hermione to her home, so that she could visit her parents a bit more until the school year started.

It was announced that the killed Knights had been Lucius Malfoy (in a lot of tiny pieces by 'unknown' magic - apparently the victim of Harry's _Dominus_), Avery (Ribbon Slicer victim one), Goyle (One of the killing curses) and three others whose names Harry didn't know well enough to care, victims of the other killing curse, the same ribbon slicer, and one of his piercing curses respectively. There were also a couple in hospital, mostly with lightning burns.

The one captured Knight had been Amycus Carrow. Since Lucius was dead, it slightly disrupted the hold of the Purebloods over Fudge, and Scrimgeour had managed to get away with dosing him with Veritaserum. He couldn't use him to convict any of the old Knights - their Imperius defense still counted - but he did get a few names, all of whom again claimed Imperius, of course. Sadly, the purebloods in the wizengamot judged Amycus' testimonial inaccurate due to him claiming the fighter had successfully shielded against killing curses which allowed Fudge to shield most of them from consequences, as well as protecting the reputation of the late elder Malfoy with the Imperius excuse. This also indirectly shielded Fudge himself from backlash of his most trusted advisor being in such a compromised position.

Due to the deaths and wounds sustained by poor Imperiused upstanding citizens, an arrest warrant went out to the unknown 'violent rioter', but since there was basically no evidence available, no real progress was made. Harry suspected the auror force wasn't really giving it their all, no matter what Fudge insisted. Unlike Fudge's life, auror lives were on the line against the Knights, and a majority of them didn't buy the Imperius excuses.

And of course this mysterious person had killed six knights apparently without effort and shielded and reflected killing curses. Aurors weren't that eager to mess with those amounts of power, and this had the result that even if they'd find him, they'd probably just ask politely if he could accompany them to the auror jail, and apologize for the intrusion if the answer was no.

* * *

Getting his supplies from Diagon Alley was boring, and the aurors didn't contact him again, so all Harry did was train Iris a bit until they'd start school. He'd finished a small side project of his, and finished a full set of basilisk skin armor for his parents, Iris, himself, and Rose. He rather liked the deep vibrant green color, and Iris had appreciated that it went well with their green eyes. He'd taken her word for that one.

Once at the station, Rose first stuck with Iris and Harry, until she found Sirius' daughter Mary, who would be a first year along with her, and the two of them went to find a compartment for the two of them. Since neither Hermione nor the Weasleys had arrived yet, that left the Potter twins to find an empty one, which they took close to the back as was their tradition in both the old and new worlds.

Hermione was the first to find them, and sat right next to Iris, who was at the window across from Harry. Ron followed half an hour later, at four minutes to eleven, while Ginny had apparently gone to find her own friends. She seemed to have more friends than Harry remember from his own world, which might be a result of her not having a fangirl crush on the local child-who-lived. Since Hermione had gotten there first, the subject of the general talk was their lessons, their homework over summer, what their lessons would be this year, who their Defense teacher would be this year, their homework over summer, the riots at the Quidditch World Cup, and their homework over summer.

Some fifteen minutes into her verbal dissertation about how much she hoped she'd _at least_ get A's for their homework over summer, Harry noticed the door open again, showing a well-known blonde, who directed her normally unfocused silver eyes towards Harry with an intense focus.

"Hello, miss Lovegood." Harry greeted her.

She tilted her head, and then was silent for two seconds. "Harry Potter. Why do I think we are friends when I can't remember talking to you before today?"

"I don't know, but I would love to be friends with you, if you'd allow me to."

Ron and Hermione gaped, while Iris herself still looked surprised despite Harry's briefing about Luna.

Ron interrupted before Harry could say anything. "Loony? What are you doing here?"

Luna took it all in stride. "Oh, you don't want to be friends with Loony Lovegood..." She shrank back a bit, looking like a kicked puppy expecting another kick.

"Wait. I want to be friends with you, Luna." Harry smiled, and his voice went softer. He softly gestured to Ron to switch seats, who was so flabbergasted that he did so without comment. Then he patted the seat next to him. Luna silently acquiesced. "Thank you."

"Anything for a friend, Luna. And I am confident we'll be good friends. Don't be afraid to tell the Nargles that. In fact, do you mind if I cast a nargle-ward on you?"

Her eyes evaluated him on an uncomfortable deep level, but she agreed, and Harry tagged her with a tracking charm so he'd be able to find her fast inside the castle if he needed to. It also tracked her health, and would inform him about powerful emotions as could be expected of a victim of bullying.

"You know to much, Harry."

"As do you. We'll talk later about that, ok?"

Harry looked towards Hermione.

"You were agreed with me teaching you Occlumency, weren't you? Is it alright if I also invite Luna here, or should I teach her seperately?"

Hermione nodded somewhat nervously. It'd take Iris some effort to convince Hermione to accept it - but between the eidetic memory and being promised the entire story about Harry, she'd agreed. She wasn't looking forward to having him inside of her head, though.

Harry turned to Luna. "You want to join the lessons?"

Luckily, the little Ravenclaw seemed to understand his reasoning for asking. She nodded. "Yes please."

Ron chose this moment to interrupt again.

"Yo, those lessons open?"

"In theory, yes. But at the start it's going to involve hours and hours of meditation you cannot interrupt. It's hard work, and I think will be about 20 hours a week in effort.."

That brought Ron up short. Sure, he wanted to be involved, but this took away a lot of his already rare free time. "I'll… think about it."

Harry was pretty sure that Ron wouldn't join, not having the patience to learn it.

Harry didn't know everything - he was no seer after all - but it couldn't be a bad thing to befriend Luna a year earlier than he'd befriended the Luna he'd known in his own world. Even if it was somewhat...terrifying how their introduction went.

Apparently, Hermione finally got over her surprise.

"Ok, this is weird. I'll admit I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is normal for a friendship to just… start by being discussed by this."

Luna was the one that answered. "That's because you limit yourself to what you know instead of what is."

"That… makes no sense at all."

Luna nodded. "But it does, really. For example, Harry and I are friends. We have been for five years." She tilted her head sideways. "I just can't remember any of it, and I don't know why. But that doesn't mean we're not friends."

Hermione gave a rather good imitation of a goldfish gaping without sound.

Luna turned to Harry. "Do you remember or know why?"

Harry smiled at her. "Later Luna, after the occlumency."

Luna smiled. "Ok."

"Thank you Luna. I'd say that you don't know how much it means to me that you trust me, but you obviously do."

She gave a single, energetic nod. "Yup, I do." She took out the quibbler, folding her legs under her towards her non-Harry side, as she burrowed into his side while reading the magazine. Suddenly, she reminded him of Rose. The old Luna had sometimes casually burrowed into his side the same way, but he'd never known how to feel about it. Thanks to Rose, he now knew that it was exactly how it felt like to have a little sister. And for some reason far beyond Harry's comprehension (and apparently beyond Luna's as well), this Luna seemed to feel just as much at ease with him as the old Luna he'd known had. As if his friendship with her had carried over into this world, and it warmed his heart more than he'd have thought possible.

He looked up as Hermione seemed to recover the power of speech for the second time in five minutes. "But you cannot act on things you don't know!"

Luna looked up with the most adorable frown. She was good at being adorable. "Why not?"

"You just can't! If you don't know something, you cannot account for it."

"But Harry is a friend to me whether I know or not. Why would he stop being a friend just because I don't know about it yet?"

"That's not how it works!"

"Harry is your friend to, you know."

"Yes, but I've spend a couple days with Iris where I got to know him to. I didn't just walk in and claim we were already friends."

"Why not tell him right away? Harry's been your friend for almost forty-six months longer than he's been mine. I think it's silly to distance yourself from a friend just because you don't know he's your friend yet."

Hermione developed a nervous tic in the edge of her right eye, so Harry had mercy on her. Somewhat.

"Hermione, this'll make a bit more sense after you've learned occlumency. And after you, Iris and I have had a good talk.."

She looked at him helplessly.

He followed up. "I promise."

Ron went in again. "Sorry to tell you mate, but Loo-, uhm, Luna often says things that make no sense." Well, at least he learned.

Harry thought for a moment. "They do, even if we can't always see it. Luna here never told me anything that made no sense to me." That earned him a slightly closer burrowing into his arm with her rather bony shoulder.

Of course, other Luna had said plenty things he hadn't understood. But this Luna hadn't, yet. But even if nothing she'd ever say in the future would make sense, she'd still be his friend, and still be his almost-sister.

* * *

During the afternoon, they met Susan who dropped by for a small chat. Harry wasn't comfortable sharing anything he hadn't told the aurors, so he didn't, and he wasn't enough of a prat to try and ask Susan what Amelia could've let slip about the case. It might get her into trouble with her grand-aunt. So instead they exchanged a polite greeting, and shared half a minute of looking forward to the quidditch season at school. In this, Ron eagerly joined in while the other girls remained silent about it.

Draco Malfoy did not drop by. Harry knew for a fact that he'd made the habit in this world just like in the other, but apparently the death of his father had some effect. Regardless, Harry didn't really regret killing the murderous Knight.

Following the instruction relayed by his parents, he joined the first years down the path, and ended up with a boat to himself. He didn't really care for socializing with these first years, even if he could recognize a few of them, like Demelza Robbins, who'd beccome a Chaser on his Quidditch team when he made captain in fifth year. The weather was terrible, and multiple times during the trip across the lake he carefully used magic to prevent some boats from capsizing in the storm.

While waiting in the entrance hall, he did reassure his sister and Mary that really, they'd be perfectly fine, there was nothing to worry about, and that nobody had died during the sorting in ages. Since both girls were Marauder enough to pick up on his jesting, they giggled slightly when they saw a few other first year students blanch. Harry cast a few drying and warming charms on them, and before he knew it, the others were all lined up and he was casting on all of them, interrupted by McGonagall just before the last firsty. She did look at him in approval, which was sort of new to him. Not that he'd been bad at transfiguration, but generally his actions didn't tend to gain the approval of a rules-heavy teacher. He did notice her approval lesson a tiny bit when he gave her a grin that probably reminded her of his father and possibly the other Marauders.

* * *

As he entered the Great Hall for the first time since it's destruction, Harry instantly felt home again. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He could still remember the moment in his own world when the ceiling enchantment had failed mid-combat - Merlin, even Tom Snake-face Riddle had looked sad when that happened. Which proved that the madman had cared more for a cosmetic enchantment than any human, but that was beside the point. Regardless, while knowing fully that most eyes would be on him, he stuck around at the back of the group of children, easily being taller than all of them. Partly because he didn't want to draw attention out of sheer force of habit, partly because he didn't want to ruin their first impression of the Great Hall, and entirely because of all the memories.

Merlin, he'd missed Hogwarts so much.

The hat sang it's little song, and professor McGonagall started calling out the names.

Black, Mary, went to Gryffindor. Apparently, Rose knew it'd be a while before it'd be her turn, so she joined Harry and stood next to him. Harry didn't think she entirely realized what she was doing, but he did feel her noticeably smaller hand search for his. This both made him feel incredibly warm from inside that she'd look to him for comfort, as well as making him feel incredibly protective of her.

"Everything will be just fine, Rose. Even if Mary, Iris and I are all Gryffindors, you know we'll always be your friends and family respectively. And to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if a smart girl like you would end up in Ravenclaw. You'd be right at home there." He softly squeezed her hand. "I was always surprised that mom wasn't in Ravenclaw. She's plenty smart and studious to fit right in there. But even if you end up in Slytherin, you're **my** little sister and there's nothing that can change that."

She nodded, and he felt her relax a little bit.

The sorting slowly continued. Then after a while, it was the turn of:

"Potter, Harry"

Harry walked to the front calmly and controlled. There was quite a bit of hushed discussions among the house tables - it was rare for someone to transfer in. He himself hadn't seen it in all his seven years.

Then he sat down, and McGonagall put the Hat on his head. Unlike his first year, it didn't fall over his eyes completely.

"Wow! You are certainly older than you look, mister Potter. I had not expected anyone like you in a while."

"Anyone like me? There are more?"

"Not in a while, but in the past I've seen a few more temporally displaced people, or slightly more rarely, those from parallel worlds such as yourself. Sadly, I don't know enough about those sorts of magics to tell you anything you don't already know, though. And then again, that's not what we're here for."

"Indeed not. I'd like to go to Gryffindor so that I can help my sister with any issues like those I lived through myself. "

"Yes, I see. My alternate version put you there completely justified. I can see that you've learned a lot from Gryffindor, and I am sure that alternate me would be proud to see how you've lived up to the standards of Godric. I can also clearly understand why Slytherin was suggested. Why, just look at the fact that you managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the alternate versions of your friends, without lying even once. I would like to remind you that it's still deception, even if I know it would have given some rather significant issues if you hadn't done it. Even just those actions show your cunning and devotion to your goals. Salazar would probably have grabbed you as his apprentice if he could even if you hadn't spoken the language of snakes. Rowena would have wanted you yesterday, if only for the knowledge you wield through the Stone of the Dead. However, I can also see the longing for knowledge inside you, your endless curiosity. However, you do not long for knowledge just for knowledge's sake - you have a goal. I can feel that now that you have a family, there is quite literally nothing that could stop you from fighting for them. Yours is a loyalty that would burn the world to save a sister. Helga would have welcomed you in the family of badgers just for that."

"But I don't want that. I am a Gryffindor by heart."

"It's true that your heart is golden and red. Gryffindor has after all made you into the archmage that you are, even if your strength has been reduced along with your age."

"Exactly. I used to be unsure of myself, but I've learned that I am noble and brave the way a lion should be. Please help me protect those I care about."

"While your skills and abilities would have all four founders drooling and fighting over who would be allowed to add you to their house, considering your ambitions, dreams, goals and reason for being here, the house where you truly belong is HUFFLEPUFF!"

The hat's last word sounded throughout the entire Great Hall.

...

Wait, WHAT?


	6. Chapter 6 - Preparations

**Chapter 6 - Preparations**

* * *

"_While your skills and abilities would have all four founders drooling and fighting over who would be allowed to add you to their house, considering your ambitions, dreams, goals and reason for being here, the house where you truly belong is HUFFLEPUFF!" _

_The hat's last word sounded throughout the entire Great Hall._

_..._

_Wait, WHAT?_

Harry sat stunned on the stool, Sorting Had still on his head. Then he felt McGonagall take the Sorting Hat off him, which got him into action. In a daze, he walked through the Hufflepuff table.

It wasn't supposed to be like this! He was supposed to go to Gryffindor. How could he watch Iris' back if he was in Hufflepuff?

He felt relief when he noticed Susan open up a space for him, and headed for it. He sought Iris with his eyes, and gave her a helpless shrug.

Sitting down, he paid attention to the sorting, even just for the duration of Rose's sorting. She went straight to GRYFFINDOR!, barely three seconds in.

"Why are you so pensive?" Susan broke into his thoughts.

Harry answered absentmindedly. "Just thought I'd go to Gryffindor."

"What, something wrong with Hufflepuff?"

Harry could detect a slight hint of cold steel in her voice. He shook his head. "No. I just… all my family was sorted there, I kind of never thought that I wouldn't be there myself. And well..." He looked at her, with a somewhat forced grin. "I was wanting to be making up for lost time with my family a bit here." He looked down a bit, ignoring the sorting (SLYTHERIN!) completely now.

She reached over, and rubbed his upper back a bit. "It'll be fine. You'll still have classes together. But don't forget that Hufflepuff is also about making new friends." She smiled softly, but Harry remained a bit pensive for the remainder of the feast, even despite having missed the castle terribly. He did remember where the Hufflepuff common room was. It was hard to miss such a concentration of names on the Map.

Susan offered to lead him, and Harry accepted. Also along was Hannah Abbot, a good friend of hers who'd apparently already begged the password off a prefect. Harry slowed his new housemates down just a moment to be able to tell his sisters bye, and ended up having to give Rose a hug before she let him go. She'd tried to reassure him, which he found totally adorable. Susan agreed after he told her when Rose was safely out of earshot.

With the use of a shortcut (Harry spotted another one, but decided that pointing it out might have led to a few to many questions), they arrived even earlier than the firsties.

The Hufflepuff Common Room was much more… down to earth than the Gryffindor one. In Gryffindor, everything was either red or gold. Here in Hufflepuff, while there was plenty yellow and black, the main qualification seemed to be earthen colors. One wall was mostly obscured by study desks with low cubicle-like walls, while most of the room was covered with wide groupings of sofas and seats, with perhaps a few more extra pillows than were strictly necessary. All of those adjacent to the walls had a fireplace, where log fires were happily burning away, bathing the room into a warm, welcoming light. Where the Gryffindor common room spoke of pride and courage, the Hufflepuff common room spoke of warmth and home.

Harry instantly loved it.

On Susan's instruction, he waited for the firsties along with the others. Only a minute later, Professor Sprout led them inside - with two prefects closing the column, probably to make sure none would wander off. That made Harry think back to the Gryffindor handling, which was a single call to join the prefect, who'd walk in front and you'd better keep up all the seven staircases, some of which moved. It was enough to scare him in retrospect. Then again, he'd never actually seen it going wrong.

Sprout continued to give the Firsties and Harry a small introduction to the House (Stick together, work hard, be honest and fair, and the world is yours) and explained where the dorms were (In the back wall, spread over 3 floors, the middle of which was on the level of the common room. Which Harry thought was a lot better than the Gryff tower, were some unlucky years had to climb 7 stairs just to reach their dorms). Sprout continued to inform them that the prefect's main job was to help them with any issues they'd have, and that even if the prefect couldn't handle it themselves, they could direct you to someone who could.

Which was a hell lot of a more useful talk than he'd had at Gryffindor.

Harry shared his dormitory with Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernst Macmillan, Wayne Hopkins, Kevin Entwhistle and Zacharias Smith. A sixth bed had appeared in their room. It turned out to be slightly spacier than the Gryffindor dorms, either that or it'd been enlarged a bit more for the new occupant. It also featured three windows, looking out at the black lake. Looking through the sides at them showed the cliff side - they were still under what would be "ground" level at the entrance. However, the castle was on such a steep cliff that it looked to be quite a long way down. The view was almost as good as that from Gryffindor. He exchanged a few words with his new dormmates, and he told them the short version while letting them makes their assumptions, then allowing them to share it around so he could stop telling it. Since everyone was tired, they didn't talk long before going to sleep.

* * *

By ancient Hogwarts tradition, Professor Sprout handed out their timetables at breakfast, which threw another wrench in Harry's now half-formed plans - aside from electives, nearly all the Hufflepuff lessons were with Ravenclaw, because by another ancient Hogwarts tradition Gryffindor and Slytherin shared most of their lessons.

On the bright side of news, Harry would have Defense before the Gryffindor/Slytherin class, so he'd be able to check if this Moody was a Moody or a Crouch. The man hadn't made the dramatic entry during the sorting feast, so it was worth checking.

The Defense lesson started much as Harry remembered his first time around - a short lecture on the Unforgivables. Despite his own history with it, Harry didn't really consider the Killing Curse as bad as the others. Sure, it was unblockable, but all it did was kill you. You could kill with a Levitation Charm, and it'd probably hurt more. The fact that the Killing Curse was unblockable didn't change the killing intent. Therefore, having this method of murder being considered so much worse was silly.

Harry dutifully answered the question about the Killing Curse, and Moody took the spiders, giving his little demonstration.

After the lesson, Harry lingered behind.

"Professor, may I ask you a question?"

"Sure lad. What is it?"

"What was the first spell my dad ever clipped you with during his Auror training?"

He noticed the blue eye looking down, spotting his so far unraised wand in his hand.

"Good job boy. Constant Vigilance."

"And the answer?" Harry slowly raised his wand.

"Some prank spell - antler growing hex if I recall correctly. I do know I punished him severely for not using anything that would actually help him further in the fight. Now, why do _you_ know that?"

Harry grinned. "Well, after the issues of the World Cup, I asked my dad about you. Since Defense is the only new position, that would be the easiest place to infiltrate Hogwarts. So I asked him for a Polyjuice question about you."

"5 points to Hufflepuff for being prepared. But lad, if I had chosen to fight, what do you think would have happened?"

"I'd have neutralized you, of course. Want to see?"

Moody's eyebrows rose in clear surprise, but his eyes remained completely focused. If anything, even more alert. Then he drew his wand, and shot a spell at Harry. Harry shot his own, and batted Moody's away. Moody shielded, but Harry's spell completely ignored the shield and hit, dropping Moody under the effects of a _petrificus totalus_. Harry followed it up with a disarming spell, and a detection spell for magical traps on Moody's person, and then kneeled down beside the man.

"Like this." He lifted his charm.

"Good job, boy. At least you're capable of confronting someone you get the drop on."

"I appreciate it if you keep my secret weapon."

Moody grinned as he stood up. "If you tell me how to defend about it, I will keep that knowledge to myself."

"You can't, except for dodging. However, only me and Dumbledore could pull it off, and in the future, perhaps my sister."

"And how are you so sure?"

"It requires a certain magical artifact. And that's all I'm going to say about that."

"Any chance of reproduction?"

"That's impossible."

"Fine, then. Fifteen points to Hufflepuff for actually being prepared enough to deal with a potential impersonator. Now get going before you're late for your next lesson.

* * *

Later that week, Harry had taken Iris aside for some private training. Of course, in a perfect world Harry'd be able to handle Voldemort for her, but Iris had long ago learned that a perfect world didn't exist.

"Today, and the next few months, I'll be teaching you to be a proper pyromaniac, sis."

They stood next to a pile of wood twice Iris' height. Harry aimed his wand at it and froze it solid with a Glacius.

"Go ahead and cast the best Incendio you can on that."

Iris lifted her eyebrow. "That's not really gonna work like that."

"Then your Incendio is weak. Give it a try. Don't hold back."

She aimed her wand. She made the movement, and incanted her spell. She melted most of the ice off two branches, and made a small flame on one of them. It went out after a few seconds.

"How do you rate your own performance?"

"With the circumstances, not bad. It's hard enough to ignite wet wood. Frozen is worse."

Harry pointed his wand at the pile of frozen wood.

_Incendio_

Iris jumped back as a huge blaze exploded out of the pile. Once the steam cleared, well over half of the wooden pile had disappeared, half of the rest was charred at the surface and the other half had the ice melted.

"How did you draw that much magic?"

"Our strength is exactly equal, sis. I did nothing you are fundamentally incapable of. There's a few differences between how you cast that spell and how I did. You know that intent is essential to conduct magic. But there's another core principle that you need to be aware of. How much do you think it mattered that the wood was frozen?"

Iris frowed. "Twice as hard? Three times?"

"To ignite it, you need to heat wood about 2000 degrees. To melt ice and evaporate the water, about 500. So the correct answer is about a quarter."

"But then I should have burned a lot more wood."

"Which brings me to the important part of magic - belief. If you believe that the effect of your spells has a certain limit, then you'll never be able to exceed those limits. You cannot do anything you believe impossible."

* * *

Luna Lovegood skipped through the halls of Hogwarts. She really liked having Harry for a friend. She'd long though Iris would be a great friend, but had never dared initiate contact. She frowned. Why would she equate them? Well, not really worth thinking about. Some things, you could not discover the reason to, while for others you did. In her opinion, knowing the difference was what it meant to be a Ravenclaw. Accept for truth what is truth, and consider the unknown to learn. Regardless, she felt a lot safer now that the Nargles would keep their distance.

In the corridor, she noticed her usual tormentors approaching. She noticed their smirks as they drew their wands at her. She decided it was only polite to give them a little warning.

"Do be careful. I got friends now."

"Now now Loony, we all know that imaginary creatures aren't friends. I think we'll need to give you a little reminder."

She gestured, and shot a spell Luna knew perfectly well - it would clear parchment sheets of ink, and they generally aimed it at her homework she had to turn in soon. The moment before it could strike her, however, it was absorbed by a transparent shield, causing a small ripple of green to flow over the slight dome. Harry's voice sounded, to Luna's utter lack of surprise. Not that she'd noticed him, but he'd promised that he'd be there for her, and she knew he kept his promises. She allowed a vaguely amused smile to play on her face instead of the look she usually got when thinking about something else.

"Nice to meet you, ladies. As you probably know, I am Harry Potter. However, as far as you are concerned, you might as well call me Harry Lovegood - I consider Luna a little sister. Don't bother introducing yourselves, your names are as irrelevant to me as you are."

They tried to cast a spell at Harry who suddenly faded into view close to them, but he gave a dismissive wave of his wand. They tried to speak, but they were silenced. The girls' spells were deflected into the walls and ceiling, while their wands flew out of their hands, getting caught by Harry. The last wand was slightly off course, but it corrected it's path half-way towards his hand.

"We're going to fix this little bullying thing you have been doing for the past two years. See, you think you're all so smart and amazing for bullying a younger girl with less magical education than you. Well, I disagree."

He made some elaborate wand movements, while muttering under his breath. One of the girls tried to run for it, but stiffened in an obvious body-bind before gently floating back. Harry's wand hadn't even twitched. After finishing his spellwork on the girls, he did a shorter one on their wands.

"Let me give a short explanation. You-" He pointed to the one on his left "will get nightmares every night, preventing you from resting properly. You, when you're trying to write something, you will have random spasms in your arms after two to fifteen minutes. You will have erotic dreams about whatever gender you happen to not be attracted to. You will, in the presence of three or more boys, get itches on rather embarrassing places. The more boys around and the longer you wait to scratch, the more you'll need to scratch. Since you might use a scratching charm, you'll also purr loudly while getting scratched. For all of you, this will continue for two years. Because you've been bullying Luna for two years."

"But I have OWLs this year! Having spasms will ruin me!"

"Ah, I expected that one. I remember Luna telling you something similar when her homework was lost or her studying for exams was prevented. I believe your response was..." He tapped his wand to his lips as if thinking. "Ah, I remember." His eyes glistered dangerously as he looked at her. "Not. My. Problem."

Harry continued. "And before you try and take revenge on this by, for example, hurting Luna or anyone else I care about, I set a few traps. Anytime you use offensive magic, under my rather expansive definition of that concept, I will know, and for a month, you'll share the punishments of any of the other three." Harry tossed back their wands. "Now scram. You've dirtied my presence for long enough."

After the four ran away like a dragon was on their heels, Harry turned to Luna.

"You OK?"

Luna smiled at him. "Of course I am. I know you always take care of your friends.." She moved closer, and gave him a hug.

"Thank you for protecting me."

She could feel his smile in her hair. "That's what friends are for, Luna."

No, Luna never felt this safe before.

* * *

Dumbledore entered the Hospital Wing. Gathered there were Flitwick, Pomphrey, Moody, and four young ladies from Ravenclaw who all looked completely exhausted, two of them in tears. He announced his presence.

"So, what is going on?"

Flitwick was the one to reply.

"These four have been having some rather odd symptoms. It seems to be related to a curse on each of them, but it's nothing I've ever seen before. Pomphrey thought they were Dark Curses, but…" The half-goblin gestured to Moody.

"It lacks some of the more general characteristics of the Dark Arts. It seems to be more of an enchantment. From our scans, attempts to dispel it seems to be… unwise. It seems to have some defense against most dispelling methods I can think off. However, whoever wove these made some of these more visible than others, which leaves me to think there's also counterdispels I haven't spotted yet. Every single of these means that any dispelling attempt will make the problems worse."

Dumbledore drew his Elder Wand, and cast his own diagnostic charms, on each of the girls in turn. It seemed to be the same spell but activated differently on each of them. He considered attempting to try and overpower them, but decided that there might be some nasty surprises in there. This was more elaborate enchantment than he'd ever seen in his very long life. There was also a rather remarkable property - normally, any curse or enchantment on a person looked like a collection of semi-random lines. A skilled magician could divine what the enchantment did from those. However, whoever cast these spells took the effort to make them write out something.

Bully.

"Ladies, can you tell my why this spell was cast on you?"

The girls looked at each other, then one spoke for the group..

"I don't know why."

"Really? Whoever made this seems to have been under the impression the four of you have been bullying someone."

Another girl responded.

"It was Harry Potter. For some reason he thought we had been bullying Lovegood, but I swear we never did anything."

A surface legilimency scan proved that she didn't think she had done anything _worth this_. However, even Dumbledore couldn't think of a way to lift the spells. She also really thought Harry Potter had cast this charm, even though Dumbledore would have suspected any caster of this enchantment to have an age in the triple digits at least.

* * *

Harry knocked on the door to the Headmaster's office.

"Please enter, mister Potter."

Harry entered, and Dumbledore gestured him towards a chair, which he took.

"Do you know why you are here, mister Potter?"

"I can't say that I do, Professor."

"There are four girls from Ravenclaw who have some rather elaborate spells on them. Did you cast those?"

Harry furrowed his brow. "I don't know for sure which girls those would be, Professor. I do remember helping Luna Lovegood against a few bullies about a week ago, but those bullies didn't even give me their names. They were quite impolite. Since I thought that they'd learned their lesson, I didn't go to a Professor about it."

"And how exactly did you help miss Lovegood?"

Harry looked up to the top-left corner of the room in thought. "First a shield charm. Then they cast some spells at me, but I didn't get hit because I'm quite good at duelling. I dodged, shielded and deflected. I used a few charms, but nothing inherently harmful or dark." Harry gave Dumbledore a concerned gaze. "Aret they still hurt? If so, I'm really sorry about that. I didn't intend any long-time harm towards any of them."

"Not physically, no, but they have been experiencing some extremely uncomfortable issues. I looked into it along with Madam Pomphrey as well as Professors Moody, Snape and Flitwick, but none of us can dispel them. If you confess and dispel the charms, we can overlook it just this once."

"I'm flattered by your faith in my abilities Professor, but isn't it preposterous to assume a mere fourth year student could cast a curse to complex to unravel for some of the smartest and most experienced opponents of the dark arts?"

He noticed Dumbledore sigh.

"Any hints?"

"About what, Professor?"

"How to dispel the charms?"

"Finite Incantatem? My experience with the wizarding world is that people often tend to forget the simple solutions."

Harry was quite sure he hadn't, though. A Finite Incantatem would have it's magical power redirected into petrification of a random limb. If Dumbledore attempted to overpower his charm with one, it'd probably be sufficient for it to last about two days. If the man'd bothered to cast a decent series of diagnostic charms, he'd know it to. Sure, Finite Incantatem would work, but you'd have to use the long ritual version and use at least 7 magicals to power it sufficiently to avoid side effects like his traps.

Dumbledore sighed again. He apparently wasn't getting what he wanted. Big surprise there.

"Thank you for your time mister Potter."

He nodded to Dumbledore politely, then exited.

* * *

Iris was frustrated. Not the type of frustrated she'd felt when looking for information about Flamel. Not even the total exasperation of trying to learn the Patronus. No, this was full on burning frustration about attempting the same thing over and over again, knowing that it should work, but it still not being enough.

First that total jerk had worked her to the bone working on teaching her to believe what she cast. That was aggravating enough. But when she'd made progress, he'd taken her wand, and told her to burn a pile of frozen wood taller than Hagrid. She was half of a mind to try and burn Harry instead, but he'd probably pretend to completely ignore it and then give her one of these damned punchable smirks of his, even if it worked.

She glared some more at the pile of wood. A tiny flame appeared for a moment, but then went out again. A few moments later, the same thing happened.

Yes, she'd mastered wandless creation of a flame which might be able to light a candle. Perhaps. If there wasn't to much of a breeze. In good weather. Maybe.

And while Harry had praised her for that for about two seconds, they'd then just continued as if it was just another small step of a long journey. She'd _thought_ it would have been worth some more recognition.

Her candle flame appeared again.

She felt Harry's hand rest lightly on her shoulder, his mouth next to her ear as he hissed.

$You're too tense. Relax. Just let it flow. It's not a spell, it's just magic.$

He'd also taken to almost always using parseltongue talking to her. It was sort of cute, actually. And it also made her feel more comfortable with it slowly, which she suspected was his ulterior motive.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity but had to have been a few hours at most, she managed to get a flame burning continuously.

Even that wasn't enough to the complete asshole taskmaster she had for a brother, as he wanted her to move the flame in a set pattern.

$It's dinner time, sis. Until our next session, I expect you to attempt this for a few hours every evening before you go to sleep.$

$You're warm-blooded.$ She'd wanted to say "lunatic", but snakes didn't have a swearword that specific. This one covered everything from sanity problems, to being excessively emotional, to being wasteful.

$I love you too, nest-mate.$

He deserved that elbow that she gave him in his ribs, no matter how much he pretended to die from it. It might have been more convincing if he'd picked either the pain or the heartbreak of sis not loving him and stuck to it instead of switching between them.

Nevertheless, she accepted a quick hug when they split for dinner. She felt far to alike to him to stay angry for long, not that she'd ever admit it. It almost felt like being angry at herself.

* * *

Tryouts were held both for the duelling and quidditch competitions that the schools would be participating in. Harry skipped out on the duelling ones, since he didn't think he'd be able to accurately fake a consistent level of proficiency. His public reason was that he didn't think he'd have time beside the quidditch competition, and the normal lessons. Iris signed up for the duelling and quidditch both. While the quidditch competition would mix all years, the duelling ones would have a few contenders for each year, with every year's finalists also competing with the next year. Then over seven different duelling days throughout the tournament, each weeks apart, a final champion would emerge. Rose also entered the duelling competition, and both of the Potter girls made it in.

The quidditch try-outs were well-attended. Nearly every house-team had fully shown up, along with a few other hopefuls like Harry himself. Since madam Hooch would be the school teams' coach, she ran the tryouts.

She started with some flying drills, which weeded out most of the non-team hopefuls, but even some house team members failed them. Then she released twenty practice snitches for the duration of the tryouts, telling the remaining 6 potential seekers to catch as many as they could. These were Harry Potter (Hufflepuff hopeful), Cho Chang (Ravenclaw seeker), Cedric Diggory (Hufflepuff seeker), Cormac McLaggen(Gryffindor Seeker), Draco Malfoy (Slytherin Seeker) and Ginny Weasley (Gryffindor hopeful).

Then she started drills with all the remaining Chasers and Beaters, having them pass quaffles and dodge bludgers while the Seekers had to weave through the very busy field to find their prey.

Harry quickly found 2 snitches, but then it took a while. He had no clue how much the others had, so he kept looking. Iris was still in the running for Chaser, so that was going well. Spotting a few of the other seekers, he decided to go shake everything up a bit, and dove as fast as he could on his newly bought Firebolt. Several of the other seekers followed him down.

Susan had come to watch the try-outs for the team. It was a massive event with more quidditch players on brooms competing than anybody had ever seen, and she was, lightly speaking, a fan. She could clearly see which Chasers were more confident and made more passes, and more often than not Hooch agreed with her, singling out the worst ones and sending them off. The beaters had been assigned groups of Chasers they had to attack or defend, while the Keepers sometimes had to join the Chasers, and sometimes had to block Chasers attempting to score. It was the most fun chaos she'd ever seen. She'd also seen Harry grab a snitch from right under Draco's nose, which made her feel a faint feeling of satisfaction, though she didn't know why. Harry grabbed his second snitch after overtaking Cho in a chase that led him through 2 scoring hoops and a hair's breadth from a bludger. He'd answered her scowl with a grin.

Suddenly she spotted him diving again. She remembered his comments on the Wronski Feint at the world cup, and checked ahead, not finding a snitch. But that wasn't weird given the chasers kept breaking her line of sight in their own drills. Three other Seekers followed Harry - Malfoy, McLaggen and Weasley. Harry pulled up about an inch from the ground as far as she could tell. Weasley broke off in time to avoid the pitch, but both Malfoy and McLaggen were throw off their brooms because they plowed into the grass. She didn't see her newest yearmate put away a snitch, so it would have to have been a feint. Pomphrey's apprentice, a girl who'd finished Hogwarts last year but managed to score an apprenticeship and who was now responsible for this try-out, went to check on Malfoy, while McLaggen seemed to be able to get up by himself.

Harry grinned as he was pocketing his fourth snitch. This was going really well. McLaggen, Malfoy and Cho looked desperate. Ginny looked somewhat frantic, and only Cedric had some confidence left. Ah well, desperation made for a wonderful tool… well, that and he just liked hurting Malfoy. He dove down for another Wronski feint, drawing Malfoy, Cedric and Cho in. Cedric managed to stabilize himself in time, but the other two plowed themselves into the field.

This was fun. He went after his fifth Snitch, Cedric and Ginny being close enough to contest. Well, not that Ginny would be able to contest him with that Cleansweep 5 against his Firebolt. Cedric at least had a Nimbus 2200, which had come out this summer. It could contest the Firebolt in speed if not maneuverability.

Harry did catch this snitch, though. Looking around after the catch, he noticed Susan in the stands, and when she gave him a wave, he responded with a grin and a thumb-up.

Half an hour later, the try-out had concluded. Hooch had selected her Chasers, Beaters, Keeper, and a full set of substitutes. The core Chasers were Roger Davies, Angelina Johnson, and Iris. Her beaters were the Weasley twins - they were as good as their best competitors individually, but their teamwork was flawless. The Keeper was the Slytherin, Miles Bletchley. Then the seekers lined up, and showed how many snitches they'd caught:

Harry Potter: 5  
Cedric Diggory: 4  
Ginny Weasley: 4  
Cho Chang: 3  
Draco Malfoy: 2  
Cormac McLaggan: 2

This resulted in Harry being selected as primary Seeker. Cedric said that he'd also be trying to become the Hogwarts Champion, and as such he ceded the Seeker substitute space to Ginny, since they'd been equal despite her having a worse broom. As a true fair Hufflepuff, he also offered her to borrow his broom if she had to play..

Draco was uncharacteristically silent about his failure. However, not having a father anymore meant that he was sorely lacking in recourse. McLaggen, however, made up for that by loudly disparaging Ginny and Harry until the latter got fed up with it and silenced him with so much power that it was four hours before a Professor had been able to lift it. McGongall had told him that there was no way to prove it'd been Harry, which Harry knew for a fact was bullshit. Apparently, she hadn't considered a silencing to be excessive in response to his rants.

Ginny was ecstatic. Of course, she'd have preferred to be the starting Seeker, but being second in the entire school was already quite the recognition. All the more since Ron had been deselected as Keeper quite early - there was some sibling rivalry there. While Harry hadn't talked that much to her before, she did congratulate him first, which he returned with a big grin. He'd known that she would be good. What he really liked, however, was that Susan had taken the effort to come down to the pitch for a congratulatory hug as well - she'd grown into a good friend over the past time in classes.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to gradek for pointing out that I'd kicked Snape from Hogwarts. This is because Dumbledore couldn't guilttrip him when Lily Potter survived, and lets be honest, the man made it clear he hates teaching. It also encourages me to know that people care enough to remember statements I made 4 chapters back, so thanks for that as well.**


	7. Chapter 7 - Triwizard Champion

**Chapter 7 - Triwizard Champion**

* * *

"Susan?"

"Yes Harry?"

"I'm going to need you to give me an alibi."

"WHAT?"

Harry grinned the exactly the same grin he recently learned his father'd have when planning pranks.. "Nothing I wouldn't dare explain to your aunt, as long as you'd let me wait until after Halloween."

"Explain. Now." Susan did a pretty good impression of her aunt in a serious mood. The only thing ruining it was how incredibly cute she was with her nose like this.

"Ok, you know how there were those Knights during the world cup. It's not much of a stretch to think they might be after Iris. The Triwizard Champions will be chosen by a magical artifact. With the permission of Lord Potter, I'd like to stand guard over it to make sure nobody can rig it to get Iris in as a roundabout murder attempt."

Susan sighed when she looked at him. While Harry did manage to keep his eyes aimed at hers, he couldn't help but notice the movement that caused in her bosom. Even the hogwarts robes couldn't hide it.

She had the most adorable thinking expression. Softly biting her lip, arms crossed. Harry gave her his best puppy eyes.

"Ok, fine. I'll help, if you can arrange whatever in such a way that I don't catch the flak if it goes wrong."

"You'll be fine. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble for helping me. There's a little item I know possessed by the Potter family that'll be perfect. It basically creates a sort of golem. All I have to do is split my attention between the golem and my true body. All you'll have to do is walk beside the golem to class and cover for any slight inaccuracies that I can't catch in time. If I get caught, you can claim I deceived you as well."

"I'm going to regret this, am I? This sounds far to easy."

"I thought about doing it without asking for help, this just makes me feel a bit more comfortable to know someone's got my back."

That, and he'd sort of gotten into the habit of not doing absolutely everything purely by himself. It turned out that if you had parents, it was sort of expected you let them handle the hard parts of life while you were young. The golem wouldn't be able to hold a candle to the real thing magically, but fourth year magic in class should go fine. It wouldn't have sufficed if he'd been in sixth or seventh year. And if he got into a fight over the goblet, it'd just freeze up while he fought - but it would also prove his fear was warranted and that would get him out of trouble. Not that he expected anything to happen during the day - but he still planned to read every note anybody put into the goblet.

"So what are you going to do while I help cover for you?"

"I'll be under an invisibility cloak watching the Goblet of Fire to make sure nobody submits Iris."

"Goblet of Fire?"

"The artifact used to select the champions."

"So… why me?"

Harry smiled at the rather pretty redhead. "Because you're my best friend in Hufflepuff House, my dear miss Bones."

Susan blushed slightly. "Not one of the boys?"

"Nope. While I sort of get along with them, I don't really… connect with any of them."

"Alright, _mister Potter_. But you owe me."

"If there's anyone outside my family I trust with a blind favor, it's you, Susan."

* * *

Controlling his golem was quite a surreal experience. It was like both his eyes were looking at completely different images overlaid on top of each other. Still, as long as he could focus on only one, it wasn't that difficult. And so he was able to keep watch the entire time as the Goblet of Fire was in public. Everytime a student came close, he cast a scrying charm on the parchment. Aside from a 7th year Ravenclaw who put in the names of Fred and George (who he'd had overheard planning to bribe someone for it), everyone had his own name. He left his own magic traced on the parchment to prevent switching charms from changing the notes, holding onto the parchment until he felt the magic of the Goblet take hold and absorb it.

* * *

In the evening, Harry found himself seated next to Susan during the feast, and his attention went to the Headmaster with the rest of the school when the draw was about to start. He did feel anxious about it. He also knew nobody had gotten past him, but he hadn't spotted an attempt to put Iris' name in the tournament. Dumbledore gave his little speech about supporting your champion no matter who was chosen, and then the Goblet flared up red, spewing out a piece of parchment. Dumbledore's hand grabbed it far to swiftly and surely for such a seemingly old man - clearly showing his magical combat reflexes to anyone who cared to look.

"The Champion for Durmstrang is...Victor Krum!"

Under loud applause from all the houses and both visiting schools, Krum got up, and strode to the front table. He stoïcally accepted the congratulations from the Headmasters, and entered the chamber on the side, just as the Goblet flared red again.

"The Champion for Beauxbatons is..."

Harry sighed. Stop it with the dramatic pauses already.

"Fleur Delacour!"

Still no surprises there. A few disappointed sounds from the other French students showed that she was not as universally accepted as the best as Krum had been, but there was polite acceptance from nearly all of them. Gabrielle was clearly her biggest fan. Her walk to the head table was pure elegance which showed no nerves whatsoever - which said exactly nothing with this being Fleur. The Goblet lit red again, and Dumbledore caught another bit of parchment.

"And the Champion for Hogwarts is..."

Harry groaned trying and failing to not internally comment on the Headmaster being a drama queen with his dramatic pauses.

"Cedric Diggory!"

Well, at least Harry hadn't changed that much since he had been rudely inserted in this universe. The Hufflepuff table exploded with applause, cheers, and assorted noise around Harry. He joined in his House' celebration while Cedric got up and went to the front.

"Well then, now that the Champions are selected - "

Harry groaned as the Headmaster trailed off. He bend his head to Susan.

"Cover for me, I'm going to keep Iris company."

Harry faded from view before the girl could even respond, now that all eyes were on Dumbledore anyway.

"Iris Potter?"

The entire great hall was completely silent, which would have been remarkable in any other situation.

"Iris Potter, please come forward."

Harry caught her right by the head table, and put a hand on her shoulder.

$Sorry nest-mate, I failed. But I'll be with you all the way.$

Iris hissed back under her breath.

$Thanks, just… stick with me for now?$

$Always. Be sure to speak clearly and deny. I'll make your voice carry. Straighten your spine. In this hall, you are the Basilisk of this school.$

If the circumstance hadn't been this serious, Iris would have smiled at being called the most powerful in the school. She did straighten, and spoke up as she reached the head table. Harry silently amplified her voice, making it carry without making it loud.

"I did not submit my name to the Goblet, and neither me nor my parents have signed the magical contracts this Goblet establishes. I demand to be released from it."

Dumbledore flinched slightly. "Come on, miss Potter. You'll have to join the other champions. If you have any questions, we can handle them there."

"No, I will not. I did not submit my name, therefore I am no champion."

Harry's hand on her shoulder was the only thing that gave her the strength to continue. Most of the great hall had burst out in a soft buzz of people talking about the most recent events. It wasn't encouraging to a fourteen year old girl.

"Miss Potter, we really should discuss this in private."

"This is ridiculous.." Karkarov interrupted the argument. "Hogwarts already has a champion. I do not know what you are trying to do here, Albus, but a second champion for Hogwarts is outrageous."

"I wish it was that simple, Igor. However, she is bound in a magical contract. As headmaster of her school, I am bound to take whatever decision is best for her. Since her not competing would violate the contract and thereby potentially strip her of her magic, she will be competing."

Iris interrupted him again.

"Professor, between me and who else is this contract?"

Dumbledore looked clearly uncomfortable. "The signees are the headmasters of the schools, Ludo Bagman, Head of the Magical Sports department, and Bartemius Crouch, Head of International Magical Coöperation. But the Goblet of Fire is the enforcer."

"Can the other signees, working together, release me from this abomination?"

"No. Once selected, you are a champion and must compete."

Iris narrowed her eyes.

"Then by my right as Heir Potter, I demand the Goblet of Fire be given to my family, so it may be destroyed to prevent it from endangering the Heir of my House. The wizengamot ruling of 1603 in the case of Edward Rowle states that any family has the right to claim and destroy any artifact that endangers the life of its members if nobody can or will deactivate the danger." The good thing about knowing this might happen was that James had been able to properly prepare and find the proper precedent for this situation. Dumbledore attempted to interrupt Iris, but she didn't give him an inch. "Any interference of House Potter acquiring or destroying this dark artifact will be considered assisting the murder attempt on Heir Potter and met with declaration of a _blood feud_. House Potter will NOT stand for this."

Harry made sure that the words "blood feud" echoed louder and and stuck around for longer. He didn't want anybody to get any silly ideas out of ignorance of the price they would pay.

Iris held out her hand.

"Goblet, please."

Dumbledore was clearly in conflict.

"Miss Potter, I don't exactly own the Goblet, it's property of the Department of Mysteries."

"I don't care. Hand it over, or House Potter will start a blood feud right here, right now. If the Unspeakables give you shit, tell them to take it up with Lord Potter."

Dumbledore handed over the Goblet, which Iris put into an enlarged pocket of her robes, specially enchanted for this purpose..

Iris spoke again. "An Enchanter from House Potter will destroy this dark artifact. Now I want a written copy of the contract forced upon me. Now."

The Headmaster looked to Crouch, who bend over and started rifling through his bag. He took out a sheet of parchment, and cast a duplication charm, handing the copy over.

Iris read the first bit, keeping it so that Harry could read it over her shoulder. It was kind of weird to feel his hand on her shoulder while every other sense she had told her that there was nobody there. Sadly, the contract wasn't exactly what she wanted - more than giving a short outline, it detailed a number of things she considered only tangentially related to the tournament, if at all. And now she was bound to them all. And the descriptions were vague enough not to tell her any details about the tasks.

"Miss Potter? Time to follow us to the side hall?" It seemed the other headmasters had already went in, which probably was good after the delays.

Iris started to walk to the small chamber on the side, while Dumbledore send the students in the hall to bed.

* * *

In the side hall, the other-national champions were rapidly talking with their school headmasters, while Professor Sprout was explaining Cedric what had just happened in the great hall. Iris grimaced as she sat down, but managed not to look like a convict on death row. If not for Harry, she'd have felt one right now. She had trouble believing that Harry himself had actually had to go through all this, and without any of the support she had. No twin, no parents, not even a little sister who would always love her even if she wouldn't actually be able to help.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's amazing! May I introduce, the fourth triwizard champion!" Ludo Bagman put a hand on Iris' shoulder, grinning like a loon at the rest of the room.

"Mister Bagman" Iris responded with a snape-rated sneer on her face. "I do not appreciate anyone calling this murder attempt 'amazing'. Are you?"

"Uhm, I.." Ludo visibly wilted as he recollected himself. He obviously suddenly remembered the blood feud threats Iris had just tossed around like candy. "My apologies, miss Potter."

Dumbledore took the word. "Regardless, pending other solutions to these problems, for now you are bound and therefore we will start with the tournament business. Bartemius?"

The rather sour man stepped forwards. "The first task will test your courage before the unknown. At the 19th of November, almost three weeks from now, you will be pitted in a battle of wits, courage, and magic against an unknown foe. I would also like to remind you that there is the Weighing of the Wands ceremony the week before, where an expert will verify your wands are all in perfect working condition."

* * *

When heading to their respective dormitories, Iris handed the Goblet to Harry, who would check to see if he could dismantle the item. Harry stashed it away and entered the Hufflepuff common room to find them in a party. While he didn't really feel like partying himself, he didn't want to separate himself from his House either. So he got a drink, and found himself a nice seat near the edges or the room. He absentmindedly watched as he used the Resurrection Stone for it's true purpose - access the knowledge of the dead. Specifically, that of whoever had crafted the Goblet of Fire. Using his Occlumency learned from the best dead Occlumenses ever to have lived, he filtered the knowledge and swifty discarded everything he didn't need. Being greedy with the knowledge was the fastest way to a truly terrifying headache, and drawing to much could easily put him in a coma or kill him.

* * *

After her third butterbeer, Susan spotted that Harry had apparently snuck into the common room, and took Hannah with her to talk to him a bit.

"Hey Harry."

Harry took three seconds to get out of his thoughts, but smiled when he saw her.

"Hey Sue. Enjoying the party?"

"More than you, looks like. Ehm… can you tell what was going on tonight with Iris' name coming out?"

"Well, it appears that I couldn't quite stop whoever added her name into it. So now we claimed the Goblet of Fire in order to try and free her from it through it's destruction, but if that won't work, she'll be forced to compete."

"Claim the Goblet? How does that work?"

"There's an old precedent. I believe it was one family kidnapping the heir of another, then tying that heir's magic to an object. From that moment on, they forced him to do whatever they felt like or they'd take his magic from him, which would squib the last of the line. The Wizengamot forced the artifact to be turned over. From that moment on, holding an artifact which holds that much power over an unwilling heir after a family has demanded it counts as one long continuous murder attempt. This meant the Headmaster could not refuse, or we'd have been fully in our right to call the aurors on him and follow it up with a blood feud for good measure."

"Wow, that's… intense."

Harry grimaced. "I fear we won't be able to get Iris out that way, though."

"I bet she just did it herself and plays the victim to escape her just punishment." A rougher male voice said from behind her. Suddenly, Harry's eyes started glowing slightly as he stood up, and he looked over her shoulder. Susan just turned around as Harry spoke.

"That's quite the accusation Justin. Why don't you prove it?"

"It's evident. She's always been pulling all the attention to herself, and never once cared about others getting hurt. Her little stunts in second year prove that. First she set that snake on me, then she got me petrified because I refused to shut up!"

"A snake? Like this?" $Constrictor$

A rather large snake dropped out of of his wand, and it curled up Harry's leg at his hissed command.

"Do you ssspeak parssseltongue, Jussstin?"

The boy paled, but shook his head.

"Then why do you presssume to know what Irisss sssaid to that sssnake?"

Justin tried to say something, but no sound came out.

"As I thought. You don't. My sister is Heir Potter, not Heir Slytherin. And neither am I Heir Slytherin. She killed the basilisk that nested under the school. You owe her your gratitude, Justin." Harry vanished his snake.

"Potter." Cedric approached them. "Please keep the discussion civil. That snake was to much. It's not how we do things here in Hufflepuff." The champion looked to Justin.

"Justin. There is no single reason for Iris to sneak in her name. I believe her when she says she didn't."

"Bullshit! She just wants to claim even more of the fame! She just can't handle that Hufflepuff finally has a year in the limelight so she's trying to pull the attention to herself."

He turned around on Harry. "And you, Potter" he spat "You need to make a choice. You cannot be a Hufflepuff while supporting someone who damages the house like that!"

Harry's eyes, which had calmed after Cedric's interference, flared up, clearly glowing. His hair started softly moving as if there was a breeze. The air felt thicker when it saturated with his magic.

"Silence. Hufflepuff is the House of Loyalty, and you want me to betray my own sister? How dare you! Iris is innocent. You treacherous worm. One more word and you'll face me in an honor duel."

Justin had blanched at the thick magical aura Harry was emitting. He held until Harry was done talking, but then he ran to his dorm. Susan stepped in, and hugged Harry.

"Calm down. The stupid idiot isn't worth it. He always talked before he thought."

It took a second, but she felt his arms around her. He talked softly in her hair.

"I won't let anybody blame this on Iris. I won't."

"You won't have to." Cedric spoke again.

"I'll go on record that I believe she's innocent as well, and I'll have a good talk with anybody in Hufflepuff who loudly says otherwise. I don't want to be supported by someone who would disparage other students like that."

Susan broke the hug, and Harry looked at the champion.

"Thank you, Cedric. You don't know how much that means to me."

Susan felt a hand on their shoulder. She looked around. Harry's eyes were calm again, and he smiled at her.

"And thanks for the hug, Sue. I needed that."

Watching a light blush on Susan's face, Harry excused himself to also go to bed. Now that he'd calmed down, he remembered Susan's hug most. He could still feel the feeling of her pressing her body against him to offer him comfort. So much so, that despite sharing his dorm with an ass like Justin, he still fell asleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

Between lessons and the drama of the tournament, Iris still had her private training sessions from Harry. She'd become good enough at making her own fire and manipulating it, and now Harry had her controlling fire from an external source. It'd started with pulling a candle flame from it's candle, then moved on to fire Harry magically created, and then to magical fire Harry created.

Meanwhile, Harry started fighting her for control over the fire. He obviously didn't go full out on her yet, but it was taking her more and more power. He did - sometimes - allow her her wand, which still gave her a huge advantage if she was able to use it. But most of it was basically her will clashing with Harry's over what the fire should be doing. She was aware that he was using different kinds of magical fire, but not the specific kinds. She asked, but he flat-out refused to tell her.

Once she got used to it, it seemed the volume of fire wasn't as relevant anymore. She could easily multiply or diminish it, and vary it's temperature. Soon, the only challenge left was opposing Harry's will, or the magical intent of the flames themselves.

Harry had researched the Goblet of Fire, up to the point that he would be capable of creating another one. However, the active contract was sealed into the enchantments - attempting to overpower the enchantments would drain power from the champions to keep the cup functional, and attempting to subvert them would have the exact same effect as the champions breaking the contract, turning them all into squibs. Needless to say, that was not an option.

* * *

The weighing of the wands was a ceremony intended for the champions, their family, and the officials. Sadly, that didn't stop some press from being present, in the person of Rita Skeeter. At James' request, the Potters had a small family meeting in advance, where Harry updated their parents about his conclusions regarding goblet of fire destruction and it's ill-advisability.

Ludo Bagman was the first to see the Potters enter the room. "Welcome! It's only waiting for Professor Dumbledore and Ollivander now."

While awaiting them, the Potters introduced themselves to the other families - the elder Delacours where somewhat distant at first, but after the girls reminded their parents that they'd met the Potters at the world cup and after both Harry and James showed to completely ignore the passive allure, they got more friendly. Amos Diggory was somewhat jovial, and the Krums seemed slightly distant as well, talking to their son in bulgarian.

When the headmaster and Ollivander arrived, the latter took the lead after a short introduction by Dumbledore.

"Well, lets get started them. Ladies first. Miss Delacour?"

Fleur handed him her wand, and he examined it closely, occasionally giving it a swish.

"Ah, very good condition. You take proper care of your wand. If I am not mistaken, this is a traditional Veela-style wand?" Fleur could only nod before he continued. "Rosewood, Veela hair. I assume a relative?"

"Yes. My grandmother was delighted to gift it for my wand. I am her eldest grandchild."

"Very good. I don't typically sell wands with Veela hair, as they only bond with whomever that specific Veela intended it to. But it makes for powerful fire and mind magics. I expect you will not disappoint, miss Delacour."

With a flourish, Ollivander conjured a few flowers, and handed them back with the wand.

"Miss Potter?"

Iris calmly walked over, expertly hiding her nerves, and handed her wand over.

"Ah, yes, I remember selling this wand like it was yesterday. Holly and Phoenix feather. You've taken excellent care of it, and it's still eager to learn alongside you. Exceptionally powerful in the defense of those you care about. And like the phoenix, not just passive defense." He held the wand firmly, and intoned:

_Expecto Patronum_

A beautiful glowing white unicorn calmly stepped from Iris's wand. It looked around calmly, then Ollivander dismissed it after several seconds.

"Working perfectly fine."

Iris got her wand back, and send a glance at Harry. He nodded back at her. It was indeed the method of spellcasting he'd been teaching her. She'd give the patronus a try later herself.

Ollivander continued. "Mister Krum?"

Krum handed over his wand.

"Ah, this is a Gregorovitch wand if I ever saw one. Excellent wandmaker despite some of our technical disagreements. Hornbeam and dragon heartstring. Very powerful combination, which requires a powerful wizard to properly handle. It should serve your very well in direct spellcasting and give you an edge in breaking shields or keeping them up."

Ollivander conjured a glass goblet, and a single flick filled it with wine.

"As expected, in good condition."

He handed the wand back to Krum.

"Mister Diggory?"

Cedric offered his wand, and Ollivander examined it.

"Another one of mine. Ash and Unicorn hair. A wand for those with conviction. Well-suited for transfiguration and conjuration."

He waved the wand, and several rings of smoke of different colors were emitted.

"It's in fine working condition, as expected."

Ollivander handed the wand back.

Then it was press time, or mostly, picture time. There were pictures of every champion alone, every champion with their family, just the champions together, champions and headmasters, champions and judges, every champion alone with his/her headmaster, everyone together except for the press, everyone together except for press and judges, and several other combinations neither Harry nor Iris could be bothered to remember. All in all, most people were exhausted when the ceremony was over, and one by one, all went away.

* * *

As Rita and Bozo the photographer went down the corridor, Harry sneaked behind them, and swiftly cast a dual confundus on them with his Elder Wand, before letting it fade away again. He himself faded out of view, and he followed them, departing the shortest route to the exit. Then they entered a class room. He noticed Rita starting to fight off the confundus charm, as he'd made it weak on purpose - he wanted her in her right mind for this talk.

"Bozo, where are we? This is a classroom, not the way out!"

Harry didn't really care what Bozo thought, so he shot a quick wandless stunner, dropping the man.

"Rita, my good friend." He let the door close with a bang as he let himself fade into view slowly, crooked grin on his face. "Lets go an have a good little chat, shall we?"

"What do you think you are doing? I will destroy you!"

"No Rita, you won't. Because my carrots are to sweet and my sticks are to painful. I brought you here not to harm you, and I'd much prefer it if I could skip the blackmail just as well. I suppose you could call it a bribe, but I'd rather call it cooperation for mutual benefit."

"So you lock me in in a small room at your mercy for 'mutual benefit'? At least be honest."

Harry shrugged. "So what if I have a bit of a flair for the dramatic. Dumbledore and Voldemort both have that as well, and right now, they're the only two who might have more power than I do. Although Iris is potentially my equal. But let us talk about how we're going to make you even more popular, famous and influential. And you won't even have to lie!"

Rita's face went calculating. "What do you want?"

Harry slung his arm over her mostly unresisting shoulders.

"My dear friend Rita, I offer a deal. Your part is that you don't write anything about the Potter family and our friends we don't like. Our part is that we give you the most juicy stories, fresh as they come. You know as well as I do that my sister has been at the center of some very interesting happenings here at Hogwarts the past few years. How would you like a bit of insider information?"

"Like what? I think you're far overestimating how good your stories are."

"Remember those Dementors last year, Rita? They almost kissed the Defense teacher at the time, a friend of my family, mister Lupin. Other almost-victims were my sister Iris and Lord Black. The only reason they survived was because Iris was capable of the Patronus charm and chased a hundred off. I could provide you with the true events behind that. Imagine the scandal if it comes out the ministry tried to hush up their prison guards almost condemning a national hero to a fate worse than death. Isn't a verifiable and true story like that not much juicier than some idle speculation about a magical artifact somehow being so broken it binds a fourteen year old girl to a life or death bloodsport on penalty of losing her magic?"

Skeeter started thinking. It was obvious that she could see some benefit in what Harry had to say. Time to bring out the bigger bait.

"And are you aware that sis killed a basilisk at the end of her second year? There was rather strong evidence Lucius Malfoy slipped the dark artifact responsible to a vulnerable first year student. I got the memories to prove it."

Skeeter stood still, looking at Harry unbelieving.

"Of course, at the time the investigation was stopped. I'll admit that the evidence was somewhat circumstantial, but I'm completely convinced. I even believe it was the Minister's office that hushed it up. And while these are some of the juiciest stories I have, I am confident we can deliver you some really good stories without you having to _bug_ us about it all."

He felt Skeeter tense at that emphasis.

"Rita Rita, my friends have no reason to be afraid. Yes, I know about your little secret. I think your markings are quite pretty, by the way. But I'm confident we'll both be able to keep each other's secrets."

"Fine, I'll bite. Tournament first. If I think it's sensational enough, I'll write what you want."

"Excellent. You won't regret this, Rita. I do have a request to try not to run Fudge out of office until the end of the year, but that's no deal breaker. Now, about the champions..."

Together, they wrote up a short summary about all the champions. Harry had her somewhat de-emphasize the fact Fleur was a Veela, instead mainlining her duelling prowess which was in Beauxbatons public records, along with a few mentions of her passionfyre. For Krum, he emphasized the fact that he was a skilled elementalist, along with a broad repertoire of spells which might be considered dark in britain, but Durmstrang made those considerations about the application of spells instead of just forbidding a certain list. For Cedric, he told Skeeter about his skills in transfiguration and what seemed to be building up to expand to conjuration as well. He was especially good with conjuration or transfiguration of living animals. For Iris, he tried to keep Skeeter to keep it somewhat shorter - focussing on her decent duelling as well as the fact that she'd produced a Patronus powerful enough to scatter a hundred Dementors during the Ministry's cock-up last year. Skeeter included a note that she was researching those events and readers would find out more. An hour later, Harry revived her photographer, and send the two of them off. Because of Skeeter growing more and more excited during the hour, Harry was pretty sure that this time around, the Prophet would be on their side.

* * *

**A/N 1: This is the official schedule for the year, which at this point in the story is placed in all the house's common rooms (in different format). Some have altered timing from canon, mostly to shove it around to a saturday, as it's just silly to cancel classes while those saturdays are right there. Any non-saturdays are marked with their day of the week. Hogwarts Express runs on sundays at the start and ends of breaks. Hogwarts now starts the monday of the week that contains 1 september, or after 1 sept. if it falls on a weekend day. Yes, this means that the year's starting Express was at **_28 Aug (Sun)_**.**

**I will probably not cover everything in detail, nor will I post the schedule entirely mid-story, because I believe that breaks pacing. I'll announce events when important and when the characters think about them. **

_**1994  
**__30 October (Sun) _\- **Arrival of the Schools  
**_31 October (Mon) _\- **Choosing of the Champions  
**_5 Nov _\- Hogsmeade  
_12 Nov _\- **Weighing of the Wands** \- Duelling year 1  
_19 Nov _\- **1st task  
**_26 Nov_ \- Quidditch (BB - Hog)  
_3 Dec  
__10 Dec_ \- Hogsmeade  
_17 Dec_ \- Duelling year 2 -Start Winter Break-  
_21 Dec (Wed) - _Yule Ball  
_22 Dec (Thu)_ \- Winter Solstice  
_24 Dec_\- Hogsmeade  
_31 Dec -_End Winter Break-  
_**1995  
**__7 Jan  
__14 Jan_ \- Duelling year 3  
_21 Jan_ \- Hogsmeade  
_28 Jan  
__4 Feb_ \- Duelling year 4  
_11 Feb_ \- Quidditch (BB - Durm)  
_18 Feb_ \- Hogsmeade  
_25 Feb_\- **2nd Task  
**_4 March_ \- Duelling year 5  
_11 March  
__18 March_ \- Hogsmeade -Start Spring Break-  
_21 March (Tue)_ \- Spring Equinox  
_25 March _\- End Spring Break-  
_1 April  
__8 April_ \- Duelling year 6  
_15 April  
__22 April _\- Hogsmeade  
_29 April  
__6 May_ \- Duelling year 7  
_13 May_ \- Quidditch (Durm - Hog)  
_20 May_ \- Hogsmeade  
_27 May_ \- **Showing Maze to champions **\- 4 weeks till final task  
_3 June_ \- OWL + NEWT next 2 weeks  
_10 June_ \- Hogsmeade  
_17 June_ \- **3 task **\+ Award Ceremony + Feast. -Start Summer Break-  
_21 June (Wed)_ \- Summer Solstice

**Please note that this is accurate for day-of-the-week purposes in 1994/1995. Feel free to borrow/copy for your own fics with any changes you feel like. I just wanted a somewhat sane schedule. It also makes it even more clear how lackluster the canon tournament is - only 3 events. While the year is so long! A Hogwarts school year is almost 10 months long. 3 tasks is just… not defendable. Lets just get the other students from those schools involved to, thank you very much. /rant.**

**A/N 2: My wizarding world actually remembers the witch hunts - intent is important in magic, so even though only very few were caught, they don't forget. As a result, Christianity as a whole is despised or at best ignored in my Wizarding World. While the opposition to other monotheïstic religions isn't quite as vehement, they are certainly looking down upon them since they all contain phrases condemning magicals to death or worse (as far as I am aware). This has nothing to do with my own religious views - it's just a logical consequence of these religions condemning magic and having each and every protagonist be magical.**

**A/N 3: Equinoxes and Solstices are important events, and magically significant for rituals. Even for those families that don't use these a lot, these are traditionally days spend with family or friends. Therefore, breaks are structured around them, simply because Hogwarts wouldn't be able to pull it off to ignore it. Families would retrieve their members for those events whether the school would like it or not. Note that events like the Yule Ball are traditionally on days before or after the event - therefore having a ritual or family activity doesn't mean you can't go. Planning a big event on these days would be considered disrespectful to your guests - since you apparently think their family activities or ritual benefits could never be as important as your party.**


End file.
